If You Love Me Foundation

Community empowerment starts with DIGNITY.  Food, clean water, shelter, a school, shoes, clothes, tools for employment, school supplies, wheelchairs, mobility aids empower, encourage and edify.  Hurricanes strip people of everything; leaving nothing of value in their wake.  Starting over, during a time of economic crisis and global pandemic, takes support.  If You Love Me Foundation partners with schools, churches,  clinics and community leaders to offer HOPE to those hurting  the most. 

When Reyes Bonilla left Honduras for the United States after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, he only had a dream, to make money and return to his beloved homeland in 5 years.  Shortly after arriving in California, he met Kristin and they began their lives together.  Kristin quickly learned about the devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, devastation that had truly traumatized her new husband. Devastation that she absolutely could not comprehend. When Kristin would ask Reyes about the needs in Honduras, he would always reply, “Veras cuando lleguemos” or “You’ll see when we get there.”  But she began collecting toys, shoes, clothes and things she knew would improve the lives of people in Honduras and they began sending boxes in 2001.  BIG BOXES!

In 2004, they visited Honduras.  6 years had passed since Hurricane Mitch, but the trauma remained fresh.  One little boy told Kristin, “La vida aqui es muy dura/Life here is very hard. ”  People shared stories of how much the boxes meant to them; the shoes, the clothes, everything helped.  This had a dramatic impact and she began collecting more.  She had seen the needs and knew that even the smallest effort made a huge difference for a family.  

Kristin and Reyes adopted three children from Honduras in 2012, during which they lived in Honduras for nearly 3 months; another opportunity for Kristin to learn as much as possible about daily life in Honduras.  

In November 2020, the unimaginable happened.  Very late in the Atlantic hurricane season, two intense hurricanes, Hurricane Eta (max Category 4) and Hurricane Iota (max Category 5) struck Central America over the course of just 2 weeks, causing massive flooding.  Reyes and Kristin mobilized immediately and planned a trip for Reyes to go to Honduras to help with disaster relief.  Monies were raised and Reyes knew that the priorities were food and water.  In his first 10 day trip, he formed a team and they distributed over 250 care bags in the hardest hit sectors of the remote areas of banana, sugar cane and African palm plantations.  Each care bag contained food for up to a week for a small family.  Additionally, the teams distributed thousands of gallons of drinking water and over 1200 nacatamales (Central American style tamales wrapped in banana leaves).  Reyes also acquired blankets for those living on the streets and 75 tubes of antifungal cream for those whose feet were plagued by fungus from two weeks in the water and mud, without shoes.