by Christopher Barca

Queens residents have been opening their hearts and wallets in recent days after nearly 300 people were killed and entire towns were destroyed during last week's devastating earthquake in central Italy. Just hours after the quake struck shortly after 3 a.m. local time on Aug. 24, Ridgewood-based Associazione Culturale Italiana di New York started an online fundraiser alongside Italian newspaper America Oggi to help its ancestral homeland rebuild.

And in the GoFundMe account's first 24 hours, $19,000 had been raised, with numerous contributors giving between $100 and $1,000. On Tuesday, that total stood at $21,520 as of 12 p.m. "In the last 10 years, Italy has been devastated twice by two major earthquakes and both times we intervened," said club Chairman Tony Di Piazza, who donated $5,000 to the cause, in a Friday interview. "So it came natural to do it for the third one."

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Source: http://www.qchron.com/