Charities in Osceola County work to fill gaps after Salvation Army fire

Stacy Curbelo, a struggling mother of five, was seeking help to keep the electricity on in her Osceola County home when the region’s largest provider of bill assistance, the Salvation Army, burned down in November.

She imagined her hope for financial security incinerating along with it until she located a similar program at the Osceola Council on Aging, where a sympathetic caseworker offered the guidance she needed.

“They really helped us,” Curbelo said. “I really appreciate her and the program because if it wasn’t for them we would have been in the street with our children.”

Curbelo is one of many people in Osceola County who have been forced to improvise in the wake of the Salvation Army fire in Kissimmee. Just as a busy holiday season approached, nonprofits across Osceola County have stepped in to help those in need.

Officials at those nonprofits say they were seeing a year-over-year rise in people seeking services even before the mishap. A count earlier this year calculated the number of unsheltered homeless at 182 and the number of those who are homeless but sheltered at 176. The figures have risen 67% over the last five years.

The Salvation Army is one of the few organizations in the county that has provided free showers, meals, toiletries and other resources to the homeless. It also provides broader services targeted to those at risk, including so-called bill assistance programs that offer financial stipends and money management counseling.

But those services were interrupted on Nov. 6, when a Salvation Army client who was angry over not receiving more services poured lighter fluid inside the nonprofit after it closed for the night and lit it. The building was deemed a total loss after the blaze demolished the nonprofit’s kitchen, food pantry, industrial washer and dryer and even some of its iconic red kettles. Cordearo Lee Mable, 37, was arrested on Nov. 7 on charges of arson and burglary to an unoccupied structure.

The Osceola Council on Aging has seen a 30% increase in requests for assistance in the two months since then, said Kelly Bender, clinic care coordinator for the Osceola Council on Aging and the St.Thomas Aquinas Medical Clinic.

“Even little things like toiletries,” Bender said.

Even though the Salvation Army offers some of its resources online, Bender noted that there is not currently a pickup location in Osceola County. In addition, fewer resources are being donated because people don’t know where to drop things off.

“It’s definitely a little more strained because I would say there’s less resources, less people donating to them, and they then have to tighten their belt a little,” Bender said. “The Osceola County families that are able to get in, they have to go to Orange County to get their gifts, which again is a little bit of a burden.”

Another nonprofit working to fill the gap is Hope Partnership, which also offers meals and showers to the unhoused, but only once a week.

“We definitely have some people coming from the Salvation Army,” said Chief Operating Officer Will Cooper.

Prior to the fire, Hope Partnership would typically serve roughly 70 people on Mondays with a hot meal and shower, Cooper said. More recently the number has jumped to an average of 138.

“At this time we’re not looking to expand,” Cooper said. “Right now we just don’t think we can make that happen more than just once a week.”

Cpt. Ken Chapman, area commander for the Salvation Army, said the nonprofit is working hard to recover.

Some social workers have had to work from Orange County facilities and drive back and forth to help those in Osceola, Chapman said. Churches have pitched in to help the Salvation Army cook and feed those in need, he said.

“It’s a lot of extra work but they are troopers and they are working diligently,” Chapman said of his social workers.

The Salvation Army will soon have a temporary location near the burned building in Downtown Kissimmee in a facility provided by Osceola County, offering a light at the end of the tunnel.

“We have some work to do to get it up to code but by the middle or end of January or February we’ll have a temporary home to operate from not far from where we were,” Chapman said.

The Salvation Army is also ramping up already-existing plans to build a bigger emergency center in Osceola County, and hopes to announce a location in January. The new center will have a kitchen, showers, and more room for case workers and other local agencies that can supplement the group’s offerings, providing a one-stop shop for anything the unhoused might need, Chapman said.

“What would have been a five-year plan is going to probably become a two-year plan,” Chapman said. “Sometimes your greatest failure can lead you to your biggest victory.”

Chapman said it will take an estimated $300,000 to fully recover from the fire, but they are already halfway there with the help of donations. Donations of money are still needed but industrial kitchen equipment is often better than cash due to its great cost, he said.

Those who wish to donate can go online at https://give.salvationarmyflorida.org/give/535542/#!/donation/checkout

Many nonprofits across the county collected Christmas gift donations this year to alleviate any service gaps over the holidays.

On December 14 Florida Firestop Systems, a commercial fireproofing company, donated 20 bicycles for kids age 5-10 to families who are in assistance programs with the Osceola Council on Aging and the St. Thomas Aquinas Medical Clinic, a St. Cloud based clinic that serves the uninsured.

“We decided to fill this small portion of the need we see in the community after learning of the dissolution of other charities in the area serving the community’s children,” said Tiffany Lira, a spokesperson for Florida Firestop.

Curbelo’s eyes glistened with tears last week as she watched her daughters Joy, 6, and Marilis, 10, ride their new 20-inch Huffy Rocket bike. It would be the only Christmas present her girls will receive this year, thanks to the Council on Aging’s bicycle giveaway.

Curbelo recently landed a job at CVS and is now able to make ends meet alongside her husband’s income as a mechanic. But she said if it weren’t for the bill assistance help she received, she would have ended up losing her home.

“I didn’t know what we were going to do for Christmas because we’re barely making it with the rent and all that stuff,” Curbelo said. “I didn’t know what we were going to do because we were going to lose our home. To be on the street with five children, it just gets me emotional.”