Giving back to Florida after hurricane Ian

I am not much of a writer of articles on LinkedIn. But now I had to, I thought. Because I felt I should give back to my beloved Florida.

My family and I live in the Netherlands. We were fortunate enough to be able to buy and enjoy a vacation home in Florida a few years ago.

And then on September 28, 2022, there was hurricane Ian hitting Florida. There were we have spent so many vacations and we know many people by now. The wall of the eye just passed my house. It took a very long week to find out if our friends were okay. And my house had damage, but not as bad as many others. We decided not to cancel our planned trip for November, but to go there anyway. It was time to give back to the community: Volunteering.

So, I'm in Florida right now doing some repairs on my house, helping people and meanwhile having some vacation. But the latter is obviously a challenge under the current circumstances.

We are all familiar with the images of disasters and undoubtedly those in poor countries are most deeply engrained in our memory. People are displaced, have lost everything and can at best be happy to have survived and at best are healthy.

It's hard to imagine that the same goes for people in the US, a wealthy developed country. We are talking to many people who live in the affected area, and unfortunately, they have the same issues. What you may not immediately realize is that, although relief forces from all over the country have come to clear debris, help with repairs and other kind of help, it will take years to get everything done.

In Florida too, people are displaced, they have lost everything. The damage is gigantic, unimaginable. For many people, personal suffering is great. In Florida too people have lost loved ones, lost a roof over their heads literally.

In addition, Florida has an above-average age population, with many retirees living here. This also entails practical problems that might be less common in other regions.

Single elderly people, who depend on young people around them, or on paid workers who are simply not available in this situation where almost every house has damage or worse. Companies don't even answer their phones anymore, they are totally overloaded. So human relief operations are essential.

Furthermore, inflation as we experience it in Europe is also an actual topic in the US. And people were often already struggling to get by. They are now facing major financial losses. If they are insured, which many aren’t, they have to deal with very high deductibles, which are a percentage of the rebuilding value of their home - not the value when they bought their home. Prices for rebuilding and real estate have exploded here. So, people get stuck. Financially, but also emotionally. In the US, more and more people depend on food banks. Then a project in which Thanksgiving turkeys are handed out is a small but very important bright spot. This kind of operation runs entirely on donations and volunteers.

Making a donation is important, but also kind of easy at the same time. Because of our relationship with Florida and the people there, I felt I also had to try to contribute and give back in a practical sense. I was lucky that my manager was fully supporting this and brought to my attention that I could use the volunteer days that my employer 微软 provides.

Besides helping out those who needed it in the local neighborhood where our house is located, my wife and I decided to register to volunteer for 3 projects:

Operation Blessing Port Charlotte FL . U.S. Disaster Relief has been helping Florida residents since Hurricane Ian devastated the region. Downed tree/debris removal, cleaning out flooded homes, and tarping damaged roofs.

Turkey Give-a-Way Fort Myers FL . The Boys & Girls Clubs of Lee County, Harry Chapin Food Bank and dozens of volunteers distributed turkeys, side dishes, shoes and hurricane relief supplies to more than 400 Southwest Florida families in advance of Thanksgiving.

Operation BBQ Relief delivers the healing power of BBQ in times of need, feeding first responders and communities affected by natural disasters. Unfortunately, their deployment ended one day before we were scheduled in for.

Last but not least, some of our friends had flooding in their house, they had to strip their house completely (carpets, drywalls, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, doors, floors, everything) as they had over a foot of water in their house. We were so happy that we could give them a helping hand with cleanup, refurnishing and redecorating.

We never heard so many times "thank you" in such a short period of time ever before in our lives. People's personal stories about the devastating hurricane touched us deeply and words can't express how rewarding it feels to put a smile on their faces. Although it will take a long time in the areas that were hit the most by this storm and our contribution is a very small one, I feel so happy and grateful that with support from my employer, my manager, my team - thank you for taking care of some of my customers while I was out of office - and certainly my wife, we were able to help the community and people just a little bit and were able to give something back!