Hurricane Ian: How community funds gave out $48 million to help victims in SW Florida

Hurricane Ian’s Category 4 winds were strong.

But Southwest Florida’s resolve has proved stronger – with the help of local relief funds that have distributed $13 million in grants and $35 million in donated goods since the storm made landfall one year ago.

Those funds were administered by Charlotte Community Foundation, the Community Foundation of Collier County and Lee County’s Collaboratory in partnership with the United Way.

“In our wildest dreams we could have never imagined a hurricane like Hurricane Ian,” said United Way Of Lee, Hendry, & Glades Counties President Jeannine Joy. “I don’t think anyone here thought we would witness what we witnessed.”

Ian, one of the most devastating storms to ever hit Southwest Florida, killed 149 people – including 72 in Lee County, 10 in Collier and nine in Charlotte. Its 150 mph winds and 15-foot storm surge devastated coastal areas, with the worst impacts on Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel, Lee County’s barrier islands.

Collaboratory raises money; United Way focuses on distribution

Collaboratory, the nonprofit previously known as the Southwest Florida Community Foundation, focused on raising money to support Lee County, while the local United Way chapter tackled the challenge of distributing aid in the midst of a disaster.

The Lee County relief fund received more than $33 million in donated goods and has distributed nearly $25 million of those items, including bathtubs, flooring, drywall, furniture, solar lights and clothing for school kids, Joy said. Many of those donations came from national companies, but local businesses chipped in as well. Matter Brothers Furniture and Mattress, based in Fort Myers, worked with their corporate partners to contribute $3 million in goods, Joy said.

“They were able to get a semi-truck full of mattresses for us,” she said.

The fund also collected $7 million in monetary donations – in total, a massive expansion for a program that Joy said usually took in $2 million to $5 million per year. About $3 million in relief funds went directly to local nonprofits, including the Community Cooperative soup kitchen and the Lee County Legal Aid Society to help residents deal with insurance companies and landlord disputes.

Another $1 million was spent on gift cards for food and clothing,” Joy said. And about $1.2 million has been paid directly to cover rent, repair and temporary shelter costs for hurricane victims. The rest will be used for ongoing and future relief projects, Joy said.

Charlotte Community Foundation leaps into action

In Charlotte County, the Charlotte Community Foundation raised $1.7 million for hurricane relief in the weeks after the storm, including $500,000 of its existing reserves given to match donations.

Most of the nonprofit’s staff lived in flood zone A, which was subject to a mandatory evacuation and was hit hardest by Ian, said Amy Huddleston, the Charlotte Community Foundation’s Director of Strategic Partnerships.

That did not stop them from leaping into action to get relief out as quickly as possible, she said.

“We weren’t thinking about ourselves,” Huddleston said.

In the days after the storm, the foundation focused on getting emergency supplies out to as many people as possible. The relief fund paid for two 18-wheelers of food, water, clothing and other necessities, and the foundation partnered with local organizations like the Boys and Girls Club and the Charlotte County Chamber of Commerce to unload, store and distribute the supplies, Huddleston said.

The fund has distributed $1.36 million of the total raised so far.

Community Foundation of Collier raised more than $10 million

The Community Foundation of Collier County raised more than $10 million and used its relationships with local nonprofits to get relief out as quickly as possible, said Cindi Withorn, the foundation’s marketing director.

Within two days of Ian’s landfall, the foundation had made grants to Meals of Hope for food relief and St. Matthew’s House for emergency clothing. By the time a week had passed, the fund had paid for tents and sleeping bags at the Collier County Hunger and Homeless Coalition, gift cards through the Salvation Army and pet carriers at Collier County Domestic Animal Services, among others

“We have a great relationship with the nonprofits and they know they can reach out to us when there’s a need,” Withorn said. “Our disaster funds are done with no administration fee. Every dollar that goes in comes out to a nonprofit service or program.”

The foundation also helped the Collier County NAACP provide relief for 72 households in the historically black neighborhood of River Park in Naples, which was washed out in the storm. And the fund gave $1 million to the Baker Senior Center to replace mobile homes damaged in the Moorhead Manor senior housing cooperative.

The fund also gave $1 million to Collaboratory, to help out Lee County where the need was greatest, according to Joy.

She and eight other United Way staffers rode out the storm in the Lee County Emergency Operations Center, fielding calls to the county's storm hotline from desperate and stranded residents.

“We took a call from a 70 year old, water up to her neck, can’t swim, panicking, then we lost the call," Joy said. “We learned a lot about how to talk to people who were experiencing fear. Ultimate fear.”

It was emotionally draining, and a stark reminder of what's at stake when natural disasters strike, she said.

“I think as Floridians we think it’s a hurricane, we got this, it’s no problem," Joy said. "I think Ian showed us that’s not correct. We don’t have this when it comes to a catastrophic storm."

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: SW FL relief funds have distributed $48 million after Hurricane Ian