Six months after the DANA floods

On October 29, 2024, a DANA storm hit the province of Valencia hard, leaving a landscape you could not recognize. Within hours, thousands of families lost their homes, their businesses, their livelihoods. At Fundación Felisa we did not hesitate: this was the moment to be there. And we have been here ever since, alongside people at every step.

The emergency was brutal. In figures: 190,000 people seriously affected, 75,000 homes damaged, 120,000 vehicles written off, 55,000 businesses hit, 240,000 jobs at risk, 5,000 metric tons of debris a day and 12 schools destroyed.

In under 24 hours we set up a 7,000 m² logistics center in Paterna. From there we organized the whole initial response: taking in goods, putting orders together and distributing them in the hardest-hit areas. We did it with the help of more than 1,350 volunteers, who have been, without exaggeration, the heart of all this work.

There are not enough words to thank the people who have been at it from the start. The whole Fundación Felisa team, alongside more than 1,350 volunteers, whether helping at the logistics center, driving aid, sorting goods or simply being wherever hands were needed. Thanks to their effort we have managed more than:

2,800 aid deliveries, reaching more than 10,400 people, with the help of over 95 companies and 15 NGOs. That let us work in more than 60 affected towns.

All of it thanks to people who decided to put their time, their energy and their heart at the service of others.

From our logistics center we are still sending food, hygiene and cleaning products and furniture to the families who need them most. Requests are made through the website and, within three working days at most, orders are ready for collection. This logistics operation has been possible thanks to companies, institutions and social organizations donating in kind.

Many families still cannot go home. That is why Fundación Felisa has started work on getting homes back, beginning with the most urgent part: drying out the affected spaces. We currently have 50 drying units running, with the aim of reaching more than 160 homes and 25 garages. We are also running various projects to repair affected homes and provide furniture and appliances worth more than €60,000. The plan is to keep gathering support so we can widen this help over the coming months.

The floods also hit schools hard. More than a dozen schools were damaged and, in many cases, lost equipment they needed to keep teaching.

Fundación Felisa is delivering school and sports equipment to 12 schools, and has set up ESPORT X VALÈNCIA, a platform for working together to get sport going again in schools. Because exercise is part of healing too.

You cannot talk about rebuilding without talking about work. Many small businesses and self-employed people lost their tools, their premises or simply their customers. Fundación Felisa is behind several initiatives:

access to microcredit and interest-free loans by joining the D_NA initiative, support for small shops through pre-sale campaigns, training and employment programs for young people, and a chatbot in development, Felisa Contigo, to guide people in vulnerable situations through the support available.

We set aside 5% of the Fund for grassroots projects. Because we know there are many small initiatives that make an enormous difference. Some examples:

clearing the Albufera Natural Park with waste recycling, support for a basketball school in Sedaví, and donations to schools to replace basic equipment. With little, you can do a lot. And sometimes what changes most comes from the simplest things.

All this response has been possible thanks to the DANA Relief and Recovery Fund, which does not just channel donations but multiplies them.

For every euro contributed, up to five more are mobilized in third-party funding, thanks to tools such as venture philanthropy and blended finance.

The fund is designed to cover both urgent needs and medium and long-term recovery. It also has local teams on the ground, which makes for a quicker, better-fitted, more effective response.

The emergency is no longer in the headlines, but it is still there.

There is still a great deal to be done, and the road to rebuilding is long. What we can say is that, six months on, we are still here. With the same energy, the same commitment and, above all, with more experience to keep adding to it.

If these months have taught us anything, it is that when there is collective will, the course of many people’s lives can change. And that, in the end, is what we try to do every day at Fundación Felisa.

How can you help? By donating essential goods, by making a financial donation or by volunteering. Every gesture adds up. Every bit of help counts. And there is still a lot to do.

All the details here.