LOUDONVILLE — Her first feeling was shock to hear a massive earthquake had devastated her home country of Turkey. The next emotion was fear as she wondered if her family was among the victims.
Siena women’s basketball senior Sevval Istanbulluoglu soon learned through social media the Feb. 6 earthquake struck the southern part of Turkey and Syria, several hundred miles away from her home city of Istabul.
While Istbanulluoglu’s family was safe, her thoughts soon turned to her friends, their families and her countrymen. Several years ago, she played in a national tournament in the Hatay province, rocked by the earthquake that has killed more than 47,000 people.
“It was really hard to go through my social media for the first couple of days because everybody’s trying to find their families and friends,” Istanbulluoglu said Thursday. “I kind of felt hopeless over here. I was like, what can I do for them? … I had to do something. It could have been me. It could have been any of us. I was just thinking, ‘What can I do? What can I do?’ “
Istanbulluoglu is organizing relief efforts on the Siena campus with help from a small Turkish community that includes freshman men’s basketball player Zek Tekin and sophomore volleyball player Ece Emrullah, who are also from Istanbul.
“We’re trying to send donations, trying to help the people because they lost their homes, their houses,” Tekin said. “They don’t have places to live.”
They’ve taken up a collection at the front desk of Marcelle Athletic Complex to gather items such as hand warmers, tents, winter clothing, feminine hygiene products and baby formula. Istanbulluoglu passed out flyers with a QR code for people to contribute money.
“We’ve definitely tried to help (Instanbulluoglu) in terms of reposting on our social media and trying to tell our family and friends about donating,” said…
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