Peninsula residents start fundraiser to help mobile home park flood victims

BELMONT, Calif. (KGO) -- People at mobile home parks on the Peninsula are still drying out after last week's flooding. One on Bayshore Road in Redwood City was evacuated during the downpour. In all, two in Redwood City and one in Belmont were swamped. But now, they are getting some help.

The families living at the mobile home park in Belmont were also evacuated. They are still displaced, but now the community is reaching out to try to make their lives a bit easier.

Since last Friday, Elena Barriga and her children have lived in the gym at the College of San Mateo in a shelter set up by the Red Cross.

They are among the residents evacuated from the Belmont Mobile home park where flood waters rose as high as 3 feet during last week's storm.

"Many of us, we throw (sic) away everything that we had in the fridge," she said.

That's because they lost electricity. Some mobile homes are waterlogged and belongings are ruined.

Eight of the youngest victims attend Nesbit Elementary School, and their classmates are stepping forward to help. .

"It's like a family over there," Barriga said. "Everyone is asking -- do you need something, what can we do? And sometimes these words make you feel so good."

And it's more than words. What started Monday as cash donations is now a GoFundMe campaign that the entire community is getting behind.

"We just want them to have the money to give them some sort of a cushion to get the food they need, to buy new clothes, to perhaps buy some toys for their children for Christmas, and anything else they might need," said Belmont City Councilman Charles Stone.

The money will be used to buy Visa gift cards as well as those from Target, and Safeway. Nesbit's principal mobilized the effort in just a matter of days.

"More so than the money, I think what they will walk away knowing is that their school loves them," said Nesbit Elementary School Principal Robin Pang-Maganaris.

The donations will also go to mobile home residents whose children attend other Belmont schools. For all of them, Christmas will come early.

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