CARACAS, Venezuela — With more than two decades of experience in humanitarian relief work, Janette Alvarez, a bilingual member of nonprofit Mercy Chefs, was in Venezuela on Saturday.

In response to the 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes that struck on June 24 in northern Venezuela, faith-based Mercy Chefs was working with volunteers from five Christian churches.

“We have served in Moron, Puerto Cabello, La Guaira, and Tibisay Guevara,” Amy Avery, a spokeswoman for Mercy Chefs.

Avery also said the mission focuses on feeding both civilians and the Florida Task Force urban search-and-rescue teams, who were deployed on June 26.

“We are also distributing hot meals at several makeshift shelters in Caracas, and areas where first responders from the U.S. and other countries are staying,” Avery said on Friday.

MERCY CHEF VOLUNTEERS: Mercy Chefs partners in Venezuela shared a photo of a delivery at a collapsed building after two earthquakes struck on June 24 in coastal Venezuela.

Alvarez, of Miami-Dade County, the volunteer coordinator for the Virginia-based Mercy Chefs team, is from the Hands of God Missions at The Way Miami, a church in the Richmond West area.

Alvarez traveled with Chef Gary LeBlanc, who founded Mercy Chefs in 2006 after responding to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

DISASTER ZONE: The Mercy Chef's partners shared photos of the devastation after two earthquakes struck on June 24 in northern Venezuela.

“He was appalled by how food was being handled and knew that the disaster food service could be done better,” Avery said about the motivation that later prompted LeBlanc and his team to “serve more than 30 million meals” at disaster zones.

Alvarez and LeBlanc, of New Orleans, traveled with eight other Mercy Chefs teammates. They flew from Panama City, Panama, to Valencia, Venezuela, on Friday before driving to Caracas, their base of operations.

DISTRIBUTING MEALS: Mercy Chefs partners in Venezuela shared a photo of a meal distribution after two earthquakes struck on June 24 in coastal Venezuela.

Alvarez hit the ground running.

“She will be coordinating dozens of volunteers daily who are helping us to make and distribute meals,” Avery said.

Mercy Chefs responded to the 2010 Haiti earthquake and served the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s Florida Task Force 1 team working at the 2021 Champlain Towers collapse that killed 98 people in Surfside.

Using satellite data, experts from Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab and Oregon State University estimated that the twin earthquakes damaged or destroyed up to 58,000 buildings in northern Venezuela.

“We will be sourcing ingredients locally,” Avery said.

DISTRIBUTING MEALS: Mercy Chefs partners in Venezuela shared a photo of a boy accepting a drink and a meal after two earthquakes struck on June 24 in coastal Venezuela and he was displaced.

Mercy Chefs partners in Venezuela are a group of five churches: Restauración Caracas, Iglesia Misionera Nueva Jerusalén Ciudad Alianza in Guacara, and three other Nueva Jerusalén churches.

Two are from the Valencia metropolitan area in the Venezuelan state of Carabobo. The churches are in the municipality of Naguangua and at Ciudad Alianza in the municipality of Guacara.

The third church is in Rubio, a city in the municipality of Junín, in the western state of Táchira, near the border with Colombia.

RUBBLE AFTER QUAKES: Mercy Chefs partners in Venezuela shared a photo of a person walking on the debris of a collapsed building after two earthquakes struck on June 24 in coastal Venezuela.

Nine days after the earthquakes struck the coastal state of La Guaira, search-and-rescue teams were still reporting that survivors were trapped under the rubble.

Displaced survivors, some of whom were camping at the Parque del Este in Caracas, were hoping to be reunited with relatives who vanished. Some were having to identify their bodies and face fees from funeral homes to avoid a mass grave.