ACLAMO, a non-profit organization in Norristown, Pennsylvania, provides essential support to the growing Latino community in Montgomery County. After a fire left dozens homeless the week before Thanksgiving, ACLAMO stepped in to provide immediate assistance, including food, clothing, and shelter. The organization's commitment to the community extends beyond disaster relief, encompassing a wide range of programs aimed at meeting the diverse needs of Latinos in the area.
A Norristown nonprofit serves the many needs of Montgomery County’s growing Latino community. If there’s a need, ACLAMO tries to meet it, offering food, clothing, and most importantly, a sense of community.The youngest boys fled the flames without shoes, without jackets, without anything, as a fire raced swiftly through a block of rowhouses on West Lafayette Street in Norristown.
Griselda Castillo, a housekeeper, got the call at work and left immediately, joining her family on the street, watching the flames shoot from the windows as firefighters worked to contain the blaze in the growing darkness. “She saw all the houses were burning, and she also saw all their belongings that they took all the time and effort to get were gone in a second,” said Beatriz Gasiba, senior director of programs at ACLAMO, a nonprofit organization in Norristown, Pottstown, and Lansdale that assists the growing Latino community in Pennsylvania’s third most populous county. It was the night before Thanksgiving. And if there is one thing to be thankful for, it is that none of the 39 people — mostly Latinos — affected by the fire were hurt. Not Castillo, her husband, or their three children, aged 14, 7, and 5. But all of them lost their homes. Many of them, that night, got help from ACLAMO, in partnership with the Red Cross and other organizations. A week later, Castillo talked about her experiences at one of ACLAMO’s two Norristown buildings as Nelly Jiménez-Arévalo, ACLAMO’s executive director, bustled around, filling shopping bags with food, socks, and shirts. “They don’t have anything, only the clothes they were wearing,” Castillo said, with Gasiba serving as interpreter. “Thank God, they were not hurt, but we need to start from zero again.” Get Jiménez-Arévalo talking and she’ll never stop, because the list of programs ACLAMO offers is lon
Nonprofit Latino Community Support Services Disaster Relief Community Engagement
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