MILWAUKEE – The death toll from two earthquakes in Venezuela has topped 1,400 with an estimated 69,000 people still missing.

Earthquakes in Venezuela

The backstory:

The initial earthquakes registered at 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, and there have been more than 400 aftershocks since then. Meanwhile, neighbors in Milwaukee are doing their part to provide relief for families affected.

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Milwaukee relief effort

Local perspective:

Organizers told FOX6 News the generosity was nonstop since doors opened Saturday morning, all to collect basic needs for those impacted by the tragedy in Venezuela.

 On Historic Mitchell Street, all hands were on deck as neighbors dropped bags filled with clothes, emergency care items and toiletries. People boxed up the items to send off to families in Venezuela.

“Wipes, Pampers that we have, so many things that we have collected,” said organizer Ana Gilmond. “There is no infrastructure there, so people are struggling.”

Gilmond helped organize the disaster relief collection site at Voces de la Frontera’s headquarters Saturday.

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“We all feel devastated, and we thought, ‘We have to get together in order to to help,’” she said. “We might be far, but our heart is there right now.”

Gilmond said she is thinking of families and her friend who died after her building collapsed during the back-to-back earthquakes. It’s a labor of love that has brought dozens of donations to the site from folks like Alex Wenzel and her mother, Deb Smith.

“Just saw images of people being pulled out of the rubble and leaving little dogs,” said Wenzel. “If there’s something you can do, why not do it?”

Group collects donations for Venezuela earthquake relief at Voces de la Frontera headquarters in Milwaukee

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“Out of the hopelessness, I know that when we take action in this collective way, we’re all helping each other,” Smith said.

It’s a simple gesture they hope will make a difference. As organizers work to pack up and load donations overseas, Gilmond has a message:

“Fuerza, be strong – we’re here for you,” she said.

Upcoming relief drive

What you can do:

This earthquake relief drive will continue at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church at 41st and Oklahoma. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. starting Monday and continuing through Friday, July 3. 

Desired items include non-perishable foods and cases of water, temporary household needs like new batteries and blankets, and hygiene products like toilet paper and toothpaste.

“Like so many good queer stories, ours starts in the closet,” said Iggy Gehlen, board vice president of the Quatrefoil Library in Minneapolis — one of the country’s oldest and largest collections of LGBTQ+ literature.

The closet is in this case both physical and metaphorical: before being publicly out in the 1980s, avid reader Dick Hewetson stored his ever-growing queer pulp collection in his partner David Irwin’s linen closet. Until then, he had resorted to reading these books with haste at the local bookseller. Possessing them, he worried, would out him by proxy.

While Hewetson’s personal collection expanded, general access to queer stories didn’t. The AIDS crisis, which resulted in the deaths of 125 Minnesotans by 1987, only reinforced the stigmatization. Irwin and Hewetson were soon running a quasi-library out of their home. Friends and their friends lent texts at such a high frequency and with such apparent thirst that when the opportunity presented itself for the pair to establish a publicly accessible library at the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union (now the ACLU of Minnesota) building in 1986, they took it. Christened the Quatrefoil Library, the collection made it out of the closet along with its founders.

In the 40 years since, Quatrefoil’s materials, most of which are donated, have outgrown various locations. In 2011, the library found its current home: a comfortable brick-and-mortar building on East Lake Street. More than 27,000 materials (including films and magazines) are accessible seven days a week due to the efforts of dedicated volunteers who staff the library. In 2025 alone, about 150 people participated in some volunteer capacity.

In that number lie countless stories of chosen family, social groups and even romantic partnerships.

The stacks host no shortage of thoughtfully curated books that fit tight, but right. There are several displays (including a current one that exhibits books published around 1986, the year of the library’s founding) and gathering areas that seem to beckon you to stay a while. The front desk is covered in rainbow flags with a coffee station manned by volunteers who are happy to gently guide first-time visitors or chat with the regulars.

Community forming space

In the past few years, Quatrefoil has reinvigorated its purpose: memberships have “basically doubled,” Gehlen said, a symptom to him of increased legislative uncertainty for queer folks around the nation. Quatrefoil provides a space for community forming, which manifests in craft circles, recovery and support groups, tarot readings and many different book clubs.

“We’re finding that people are needing that space more (today),” said Ollin Montes, board president of the library. “Since 2023, when there was this wave of criminalization of gender-affirming care, and widespread targeting of queer folks, we’ve had folks migrating to Minnesota and coming to the library.”

New groups form and congregate in the library often. Recently, migrant volunteers from the southern United States created a group that welcomes transplants from all parts of the country. Those who come to the library hoping it will bridge them to queer community find that it offers just that.

“It’s really important that people have safe spaces, where they feel affirmed, and where they can just let their hair down,” Montes said. “I feel grateful that we’re able to provide that space for folks who are needing it.”

He first connected with Quatrefoil as an escape from feelings of burnout from his day job as an immigration organizer in 2019.

“I came in and I just fell in love,” Montes said. “It was surreal to be in a space where all of the content was focused on queer issues and topics.”

Shared identities

What touched him most upon his arrival were the two older front-desk volunteers willing to plunge into deep conversation with him immediately — a moment he soon realized was one of his first experiences of conversation with queer elders.

Intergenerational connection is especially challenging in queer communities because unlike other minority groups, LGBTQ+ people don’t traditionally congregate in a central hub. Youth are less likely to grow up around people with shared identities after which they can model, or at least visualize their future. This makes positive representation in physical media all the more important.

But at Quatrefoil, patrons have the chance to hear stories of survival straight from the source. Current head librarian Karen Hogan, for example, became a visiting patron of the library in 1987 and has volunteered since the ’90s. She’s a resource beyond her role, a walking archive of sorts, and has been especially helpful in planning the 40th anniversary celebration that the library will host in October.

This intergenerational aspect is something Montes says keeps him in the space. Talking to queer elders about their personal experiences has helped him through several milestones in his life, like presenting his boyfriend to his parents for the first time.

“Hearing those stories gives you a sense of power,” Montes said. “Our history is passed down both through what we write and the stories we’re told. Some of those stories are told by virtue of having the opportunity to have a conversation with somebody who was alive during that time.”

Queer people have long relied on pioneers within the community to recognize, safeguard and circulate materials relevant to their lives. Thanks to the efforts of Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, for example, who donated his large lifelong collection of LGBTQ+ related materials, the University of Minnesota now has one of the largest LGBTQ-specific archival repositories in the country.

Digitizing the collection

Clubs and bars are nice places to find community, Montes says, but spaces to “nerd out” are just as important.

Volunteers have started to digitize the collection as well. As some Pride events are tabled in rural areas this month, library volunteers will be able to point curious minds to the virtual site.

For closeted kids in rural Minnesota, virtual access could help prevent the same issue founder Dick Hewetson faced.

“It gives you a kind of plausible deniability,” Gehlen said. “You don’t have to hide the book in your backpack. You can just close out of the app if you don’t want somebody to see what it is that you’re reading.”

Montes says that having access to queer history as a young person gave him strength.

“Learning about all the things that queer people did to protect ourselves, to care for each other, to support one another … made me understand that (we) are so resilient,” Montes said. “We have the capacity to meet these moments of crisis and uncertainty.”

He points to a quote by writer James Baldwin, who said: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”

A bittersweet anniversary

The name of the library pays homage to the seminal 1950 queer novel “Quatrefoil” by James Fugaté (pen name James Barr), one of the first texts to depict gay characters in a positive romantic light. The lessons taken from history and fiction is what continues to guide the space into the future.

“There’s a lot of scariness outside in the rest of the world, and we don’t want to downplay that,” Gehlen said. “But within this space, we have a lot of people who care a lot about protecting great stories, and share their time and expertise to continue to create something that is even bigger, beautiful and accessible, while really staying true to that original mission that was created by Dick and David.”

TONIGHT

A few showers and thunderstorms may linger through the evening before coverage gradually fades later tonight. Patchy fog may develop after about 2 a.m., and lows settle in the upper 60s with a light east breeze. It will not rain all night everywhere, but the evening still carries enough of a storm threat to keep a weather eye nearby.   

TOMORROW

Patchy fog early gives way to a partly sunny, warmer, and much less active day. Highs climb into the mid 80s, with a light east wind around 5 mph. After the unsettled Saturday, this looks like a far more usable day for outdoor plans, and most of central Indiana should stay dry from start to finish.

TOMORROW NIGHT

Clear early, then becoming partly cloudy toward daybreak, with lows in the low 70s. A light south southeast breeze around 5 mph keeps the air moving just enough, and the humidity stays elevated overnight. Quiet weather continues.  

MONDAY

Mostly sunny and hot with highs pushing into the low 90s. A south southwest breeze around 5 to 10 mph keeps the air moving, but the bigger story is the heat and humidity building in. Heat index values over 100 are possible during the afternoon, so outdoor plans will need extra water and more breaks.

MONDAY NIGHT

Mostly clear and warm, with lows around the mid 70s. A light south southwest breeze continues overnight, and there will be very little cooling after sunset. It stays dry, but the muggy feel hangs on.

TUESDAY

Sunny and even hotter, with highs in the low to mid 90s and a light southwest breeze around 5 mph. This is another day where the heat becomes the main impact, and it will not take long to feel it during the afternoon. Outdoor work and summer activities will need to be paced carefully.

TUESDAY NIGHT

Clear and warm again, with lows in the mid 70s and a light southwest wind. The air remains sticky overnight, and there is still no meaningful rain signal for Indianapolis.

WEDNESDAY

Mostly sunny and hot, with highs in the low to mid 90s. Wind stays light, becoming south southwest around 5 mph in the afternoon. Heat remains the main concern, and another uncomfortable summer afternoon is expected across central Indiana.

7 DAY FORECAST

After today’s storm chances taper away, the pattern flips quickly toward heat and humidity. Sunday looks quieter and warmer, then Monday through at least Wednesday trend hot with highs in the 90s and heat index values over 100 possible at times. Rain chances stay very low through midweek, with only low-end storm chances returning later Thursday into Friday. Overall, the bigger concern after Saturday becomes summer heat rather than repeated storm chances.