For three days after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, Sacramento State senior catcher Raul Ortiz was unable to contact any of his family members in his hometown of Toa Alta.

Now, a GoFundMe campaign organized by Ortiz and his girlfriend, Shelby Gill, is nearly at its goal of raising $10,000 to help his family and community afford food, gas and rebuilding efforts, as Puerto Rico struggles to recover.

The campaign has raised $8,215 in the four weeks since it started on Sept. 26, about a week after the Category 4 Hurricane Maria landed on Puerto Rico. The hurricane destroyed what remained of the unincorporated territories’ communications and power infrastructure after Hurricane Irma’s landing two weeks prior.

Due to the breakdown of that infrastructure, Ortiz was unable to contact his parents, brother, grandfather and uncle for three days.

Screenshot via GoFundMe

During that time, Ortiz said that his intensive baseball regime — weight lifting in the mornings and baseball practice throughout the day — helped keep his mind off the stress of not being able to speak to family members and check on their status.

“I was trying to not worry, since I can’t communicate with them, so I tried to put my mind here and worry about what I can do than worry about what I cannot do,” Ortiz said. “Because I play sports, it helped me a lot because my mind wasn’t there, it was in the sport. So when I was doing drills and practicing, I was more focusing on my development on the field.”

However, Gill said that Ortiz still felt some anxiety revolving around his family’s condition.

“He was freaking out, he didn’t know what to do,” Gill said.

While baseball helped keep his mind off his family’s uncertain situation, Ortiz said the concern for the safety of his family caused him to skip studying for, and subsequently failing, a test  while monitoring the hurricane and its effects in Puerto Rico on social media.

"I've been here many years but it's over now."
This Friday, @LatinoUSA premieres a 1-hour episode about Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. pic.twitter.com/JZnE0dIkcr

— Latino USA (@LatinoUSA) October 19, 2017

“It was probably because I didn’t want to study — I was more worried about my family,” Ortiz said. “Social media by that time was crazy — like you see the videos. I wanted to be in social media more than my books.”

After three days of waiting, Ortiz finally got his break.

“He finally got a call — (his family) found a little bit of signal at the top of a hill or something,” Gill said. “They called and said, ‘We have nothing, no water, and our food’s going to go bad.’ ”

Ortiz also found out that his family’s home was partially destroyed, his nephew had pneumonia and his grandfather had become ill after drinking contaminated water. The bad news continued, as he learned his uncle’s house was completely destroyed, and his brother was going to temporarily move to Texas to find work.

Ortiz’s nephew and grandfather have since recovered and his brother moved to Texas on Oct. 20 with the support of the GoFundMe money, but rebuilding efforts for his family and community are either still in progress or need extra funding.

At first, Ortiz said he tried to send water filters and non-perishables, such as rice and canned foods, to help his family. But Ortiz and Gill said the damage from Hurricane Maria prevented the United States Postal Service and local post offices from delivering packages to Ortiz’s family until about three weeks after the hurricane hit.

“For me, it felt like I wanted to help them, but I was far away,” Ortiz said. “I might have the resources to help them, but I didn’t have any (way) to send supplies — my hands were tied. I knew what I could do, but the situation didn’t let me help them. It felt like you had to just wait and see what happened.”

While looking for ways to help Ortiz’s family, Gill said she asked her dad for advice, who then recommended GoFundMe to raise money for them.

Through Bank of America, Ortiz said he could transfer the proceeds to a bank in Puerto Rico for a $30 fee, which his mom can then withdraw and use for basic amenities and to also help her coworkers and others in her neighborhood.

After creating the GoFundMe campaign, Ortiz and Gill said they used Facebook and email to reach out to friends and family for contributions. Gill’s grandmother donated $900 to the campaign. Athletes in Action, a Bible study group of which Ortiz is a member, also shared the GoFundMe campaign by posting it on its website.

However, Ortiz and Gill said a majority of the proceeds were raised with help from Reggie Christiansen — the head coach of Sac State’s baseball team — after he helped spread the word about the GoFundMe campaign.

Christiansen said he learned about Ortiz’s situation through an assistant coach, who heard it from another player. He then posted a link to the GoFundMe campaign on the team’s page.

“I just think that he’s a great kid and what his family’s going through — it’s hard to put yourself in his shoes, what he’s going through,” Christiansen said.

Christiansen said that in addition to helping one of his players, he wanted to bring attention to the situation of everyone affected by Hurricane Maria.

“I just thought (sharing the GoFundMe) was a way to give a voice through Raul’s situation,” Christiansen said.

A total of $400 was donated to Ortiz’s and Gill’s Puerto Rico relief campaign by the Christiansen family.

For Ortiz’s part, he said that he initially did not want to tell Christiansen or others about his situation, but the support ended up bringing success to his campaign and efforts to help his family and community.

“I didn’t want to tell him because I was embarrassed asking for help,” Ortiz said. “But right away, he knew about my situation and what I was doing. He took charge, he was the one that spread the word, and after he took charge of that, my donation was increasing —  my gym coach was donating, his friends, his members, all my coaches, my friends’ coaches — it was a blessing.”

The outpouring of support — 100 donors as of press time — surprised Ortiz.

“I never thought I’d go past $1,000, I had a lot of hopes, but I never thought it was going to be that much money,” Ortiz said. “I feel like, having that help, they always have my back. They always want the best for me. And what I learned about Sac State baseball is that we are family.”