The House of Turkey in Balboa Park brought together community members on Saturday to mourn the more than 28,000 lives lost after a massive earthquake hit Turkey and Syria.
“We started crying here for the first time because you feel, I don’t know, all the powerful things come to you when you are with your people,” said Ozlem Erol.
Erol, while fighting back tears behind dark sunglasses, said she has not been able to stop thinking about the destruction in Turkey. She is Turkish, as well as her husband and son, but being with a large group really made her emotions rise to the surface.
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“It is incomprehensible. We can’t, I can’t, we don’t even understand the magnitude,” said Erol. “We’re still processing.”
Erol has family in Turkey, but they were not in the areas hardest hit. Although, Erol explained this provided her little comfort.
“When we say that we don’t feel great. We almost feel, like, shame because you can’t say, ‘oh, I’m so happy everyone in my family is good,’ it just doesn’t make you feel great,” said Erol.
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The House of Turkey had guest speakers address the crowd, along with San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert. She gave an update on the rescue effort, including that a group of search and rescue members from Los Angeles had arrived in Turkey yesterday.
“It’s been a week of mourning for all of us,” said Helin Ergun. “Seeing all of the buildings just go crashing down, the road splitting, people left under the rubble.”
Ergun went to the event with her family. She explained she is a student at University of California, San Diego and teared up when she talked about how supportive the Turkish-American community on-campus has been in the past few days.
Ali Kiran, the president of House of Turkey, said they set the goal to raise $200,000 to send to relief groups on the ground in Turkey. As of noon, Kiran said they had raised more than $150,000 and would raise the goal if they exceed it so soon.
“It makes me want to cry, that’s how I feel,” said Kiran, talking about the outpouring of support in San Diego. “We are all together. We are all one. It doesn’t matter which country you were born, not the religion you pray, not the education you got, but we are all one.”
He said donating is the best thing people can do to help right now, which made Aleyna Pala feel empowered.
“It really means a lot that we can do so much from the other side of the world and directly help the people in need,” said Pala.
Find more information about relief efforts being organized by the House of Turkey, click here.