A crisis in Cuba draws a lifeline of assistance from Tampa
Madelayne Blanco sends as many as three packages loaded with canned food, medicine and supplies to her family in Cuba every month.
Blanco’s 78-year-old grandmother lives in Pinar del Río, a town in western Cuba, where she handles finances at a public school. Her monthly wage — about 2,000 Cuban pesos, or $3 at Cuba’s informal exchange rate — is barely enough to buya bottle of cooking oil.
“One sees so many things here that you wish they had, too,” said Blanco, who came to Tampa from Cuba three years ago.
Carepackages, shipped by Cubans likeBlanco in Tampa and across the U.S., have been a lifeline on the island for years. But that help is now more critical than ever as Cuba finds itself in a worsening economic crisis due to ramped-up pressure from the Trump administration.
U.S. sanctions and an oil blockade have spurred the country’s economic collapse.Even Cuba’s vaunted healthcare system is scuffling.
Cubans in Tampa are mobilizing.Their shipments are vital to those on the island, said Michael Bustamante, director of the Cuban Studies program at the University of Miami.
Delivery companies charge as much as $2.99 per pound to send a package by plane, so mailing a 100-pound box would cost nearly $300. Boat shipments cost around half the price.
“Things have not been this bad in Cuba in at least 30 years,” Bustamante said.
The removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro exacerbated the crisis as oil shipments to the island ceased afterthe regime change.
On the island, residents plantheir days around when the lights come on, Bustamante said. Blackouts sometimes last longer than 24 hours. Energy returns only to disappear once more after a couple hours. Cartons of eggs are too costly for many to afford.
“Unless you have access to shipments or just infusions of cash from outside, I don’t understand how some people are getting by,” Bustamante said.
“At least they’ll have something to eat”
Blanco’s grandmother struggles with asthma, high blood pressure and back pain. When she had to go to a doctor’s appointment recently, she traveled 16 miles on horseback because she couldn’t findgasoline.
Sending over some help makes Blanco feel less anxious.
“At the very least, they’ll have something to eat,” she said.
Some of the most common items sent include canned food, clothes andmedicine, as well as flashlights, mosquito nets, fans and solar-powered generators.
Businesses built around island deliveries offer “baskets” with meats, grains and hygiene products such as shampoo and deodorant. Those can cost as much as $250.
Blanco works at one such business, Cuballama, at their location on Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa. The store, one of 12 across the country,fills up on weekends when people drop off boxes. Shelves are lined with canned beans, powdered milk and bars of soap, ready for purchase and shipment. Through its network on the island, Cuballama offers delivery to homes in Cuba within 24 hours and has an online store to make ordering easier.
“You ship everything because there’s nothing in Cuba,” Blanco said.
A few miles away, Yoandra Perez owns Caribe Services Travel on North Armenia Avenue. Her business ships between 20 and 25 boxes per week, compared to about 10 a week before the crisis worsened.
“The need is bigger and bigger,” said Perez, who has owned her company for 20 years. “More clothes, more medicine, more of everything.”
Money to survive Cuban sanctions
For many Cuban families,sending cash is just as important because it allows relatives on the island to cover other basic needs, such as rent, transportation, doctors and phone service.
Tania Lastre, 50, a Cuban who came to the U.S. about two decades ago, sends $100 a month to help her mother in Havana pay rent. Every two months, Lastreships food, over-the-counter medications and toiletries.
Lastre said helping relatives meet their daily needs is not easy. She sends an extra $50 for supplies, pays $30 a month for a phone serviceand gives $100 to a woman who lives with and cares for her mother. Lastre has two sisters in the U.S. The three of them help as much as they can.
“You have to work not just one job, but two or even three to pay your bills and help them at the same time,” Lastre said.
In the mornings, she works in Tampa as an ophthalmologist’s assistant. In the afternoons, she sells insurance.
Lastre also helps her 80-year-old father in Camagüey, a province in central Cuba, where he needs a caregiver. Recently, she found a shipping company to arrange for a wheelchair delivery.
Bustamante, the Cuba expert, said America’s immigration crackdown has prompted more packages. Cubans often used to travel to the island, visit family and drop off supplies. Now, people don’t want to risk leaving the U.S., he said.
A recent study by David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 1,000 Cubans per month last year, five times more than in late 2024. Green card approvals have all but stopped.
On a recent afternoon, Yordenis Oliva, 47, was at Cuballama sending clothes, shoes, medicine and a stuffed lion to his daughter. Oliva works at Tampa International Airport for a car rental company.
Hecame to U.S. three years ago and is waiting for his permanent residency. In Cuba, he was a taxi driver and worked in tourism for 15 years. Oliva said he would love to go back to Guantánamo to visit his daughters, ages 11 and 16, along withhis wife and his mother. But he fearsdoing so would jeopardize his immigration case.
“My sacrifice is for them,” he said. “It’s worth it.”
Remittances fraught with risk
Oliva is not alone.
Johan Menéndez, 44, and his uncle, Osmel Zapata, 56, help relatives in Havana with expenses to covera construction project at the family home, where Zapata’s 95-year-old mother lives.
On June 15,Menéndez and Zapata went to Brothers Envíos on West Waters Avenue with a box of household items, including pots and pans, food and clothing. They paid $130 and sent $500.
Menéndez, a truck driver, came to the U.S. in 1994 as a child with his mother. He said she has always worked two jobs to send back food and clothing to relatives. Zapata came to the U.S. two years ago and works in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant in Tampa.
They both said Cubans in the U.S. keep helping even though they know the Cuban regime can benefit from remittances and package deliveries through fees and taxes tied to deliveries and dollars spent in state-run stores.
“People who have relatives here in the United States are blessed,” Menéndez said. “When I was in Cuba, I had nothing, and we went through a lot of hardship.”
But pressure from sanctions isn’t just coming down on the Cuban government. New U.S. measures against five Cuban state companies could create risks for thebusinesses doingthe shipping. Theycould be sanctioned and cut off from the U.S. financial system, the Associated Press has reported.
Envioscuba.com, one of the most popular platforms used to buy supplies from abroad for relatives in Cuba, stopped taking orders this month, citing reasons beyond its control.
The site sells and delivers goods stored on the island through Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., a business group owned by Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces. The military-run conglomerate is one of the latest targets of American sanctions.
Still, families send what they can. Alexein Fernandez sent two portable generators to his family in the province of Santiago de Cuba this year.
The solar-powered devices allow his two sons, grandson and 78-year-old mother to endure blackouts,powering lights, a small fridge, fans, a rice cooker and their phones.
Each generator cost around $700, but Fernandez, who left Cuba almost four years ago, said it is an obligation to help.
Fernandez, 44, owns a Latin food truck in Tampa and works on the side for a remodeling company. He shops at Burlington and lower-priced Chinese retailers, setting aside $500 per month to ship the clothes and shoes his family needs.
“You have to pay rent, taxes and more,” he said. “But there is always enough left to help your family.”