The morning after the devastating earthquake in Venezuela, Jesús Pacheco began seeing videos of collapsed buildings and pleas on social media for motorcyclists to help.
The roads into the hardest-hit areas were clogged, but motorcycles could reach places larger vehicles could not. So Mr. Pacheco, a 26-year-old electronics student, loaded a box of medical supplies onto his bike and set off on the five-hour ride from his city, Barquisimeto, to the capital, Caracas.
He stopped along the way to help unload a humanitarian aid truck that had broken down before moving on to the devastated coastal state of La Guaira.
Mr. Pacheco was one of thousands of Venezuelans who rushed toward the destruction. Neighbors dug through rubble with shovels and their bare hands. Churches became donation centers. Volunteers loaded trucks with food, water and medicine.
“I thought, classes have been suspended, I don’t have anything to do right now. What can I do? Should I go? Should I take the risk?” Mr. Pacheco said. “I decided yes. I wanted to join the effort and contribute my little grain of sand, even if all I could do was deliver one small box.”
“My little grain of sand,” a common Spanish expression for a small contribution to a larger effort, has come up again and again in conversations with volunteers.
For many Venezuelans, the outpouring reflected something deeper than a spontaneous disaster response: a longstanding culture of solidarity that has helped fill gaps left by years of economic crises and weakened public institutions.
