Florida man brings water purifiers to Turkey, UCF students launch fundraiser to help cause

ORLANDO, Fla. - People in Central Florida are stepping up to help those who survived the devastating earthquake in Turkey. 

Joe Hurston with the non-profit Air Mobile Ministries is traveling from Florida to Turkey to bring water purifiers to those in need.

"I had the strongest impression from the Lord saying just go," said Hurston. 

Each of the fourteen water purifiers he and his team are bringing can purify up to 25 gallons of water an hour. 

"We can give literally a thousand people a day clean drinking water in the most desperate time in their life. Imagine being thirsty and cold and having lost everything, and seeing and hearing your loved ones die. It’s such a tragedy. We feel we just have to get there," said Hurston. 

You can follow Hurston and his team's mission in his daily blog here. 

Two University of Central Florida students are also stepping up to help. Idil Kilic and Erk Mete are originally from Turkey and have now stepped up to help. 

"All of the apartment complexes have come down. The cities are flat. There’s no market you can get food from, no clean water, and people are freezing. It’s snowing it’s raining and they’re in rubble," said Kilic. "The best we can do for our people, and people in general, is to ease the pain of the aftermath so they don’t have to worry about the financial aspects of it."

They will be hosting a fundraiser and have launched a donation page where they will collect money and ask local businesses to match the donations to send money to help those in Turkey. 

"A few months ago we had a terrible hurricane that went through Florida and my friends from Turkey asked are you ok? Do you need anything? People care about others, why shouldn’t we care about them?" said Mete. 

The Turkey Earthquake Relief bake sale will be held at Memory Mall on UCF's campus from 10-3 pm on Monday, Feb. 13 to Wednesday, Feb. 15. The fundraiser is open to the public.