$5 million in Collaboratory-raised Ian funds make a big impact
The more than $5,000,000 Collaboratory raised to support Hurricane Ian recovery has been distributed and pledged in a plethora of ways throughout the community.
Part of Collaboratory’s core mission as a community foundation is to provide an opportunity for donors to be able to respond to community challenges, and Hurricane Ian was the biggest challenge the community has ever faced, which FutureMakers Coalition Director Tessa LeSage said.
The SWFL Emergency Relief Fund, in partnership with United Way of Lee, Hendry, and Glades Counties, was opened and contributions were made from every state, as well as international, for a total of $2.6 million.
“Having that fund open created a vehicle to receive much needed financial support for our community,” LeSage said.
United Way of Lee, Hendry & Glades President and CEO Jeannine Joy said they also worked on raising funds at the same time resulting in almost another $6 million that the United Way raised from special grants, funding and individual donors.
The giving did not stop there.
United Way, through its Gifts in Kind Program, received donations of tangible goods, which in 2023 alone reached $25 million. Those goods included flooring, bathtubs, furniture, mattresses, drywall and insulation. Joy said they have been able to get out almost $18 million of that.
“The dollars from Collaboratory – those initial dollars were so important,” Joy said, adding that allowed them to put gift cards in their partner agencies’ hands to distribute. “We knew people needed things right away.”
Those items included clothes and shoes, or sheets of plywood because their windows were blown out.
“It offered those families a sense of control, dignity and hope to take those gift cards to purchase the right size in their style and replace things that were lost,” Joy said. It gave them the “ability to get what they needed immediately.”
There was almost $1 million in just varying denomination gift cards alone ranging from Visa cards to cars for Publix, Walmart and Target.
A United Way in Long Island sent $25,000 in Visa gift cards, as they had dealt with Super Storm Sandy. Joy said they just finished their last home at the 10-year anniversary. Another United Way in Louisiana did a telethon and raised $42,000, as they had gone through Hurricane Katrina.
In addition, United Way was able to provide $1.8 million to partner agencies to help with such things as rent, utilities and repairs.
The outpouring and generosity from all over the country, as well as the Southwest Florida community has been tremendous.
Joy said to see the capacity of caring was amazing, as there were people who had their homes destroyed that were still helping everyone else.
“That is the kind of thing you just dream of,” she said. “To understand after a few days this is going to be a lot of hard work. The toughest work any organization, nonprofit, person has ever gone through. We had that hope we could get there. We are resilient and are a caring community. We will get to where we need to be to be whole as a community.”
A year later, United Way still has some funds available to assist as they know rebuilding is big and people are fighting insurance, or do not have insurance. To help with that assistance, they are utilizing dollars to help the volunteer groups that are coming to Southwest Florida to help rebuild their homes.
In addition, the monetary assistance is also going to those who are experiencing the trickle-down effect. Joy said maybe someone’s home was OK without any damage, but they worked at the hospital and their car was flooded. Now they are left with purchasing a car and their car insurance increased.
“That probably didn’t affect you immediately, but now you have to dip into savings,” she said of the extra $100 to $200.
Another scenario, affecting many renters, is finding a new place to live because their lease is up and the landlord increased rent. Joy said they help by paying the landlord.
“The family are able to move in and start to get stabilized,” she said.
With the need still there, United Way continues to take donations. In addition, they are raising funds to meet their $11.3 million regular community fund goal because the problems that touched Southwest Florida before Hurricane Ian still remain.
“We still have a recovery, still have a lot of everyday problems,” she said. “Trying to balance both and having people donate to both is our biggest challenge.”
Individuals can donate to the regular community fund, and/or the SWFL Relief Fund by visiting unitedwaylee.org.
Joy wants to reassure members of the community that it is OK to ask for help, even if they did not need assistance before. She said now is the time to ask, to call United Way 211 and reach out to the information referral hotline, so they can be pointed to the resources available.
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” Joy said.
Another benefactor was FutureMakers Coalition, which Collaboratory is the backbone for the workforce initiative.
LeSage said they have a navigator program, which provides individuals an opportunity to walk alongside adults to help them obtain their education.
Immediately following Hurricane Ian, navigators deployed and worked with individuals who were suddenly out a of job, or lost their home and needed help to maintain, or get back into a career.
LeSage said they collaborated with the Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau, so hospitality workers had direct access to navigators for assistance in finding a new job. She said many individuals that the navigators were helping were living out of their cars and shelters, which prompted the navigators to pick up donations, such as diapers and water, to give them to folks desperately in need.
“We deployed our navigators in a new way to help them meet the needs of some of the individuals,” LeSage said.
The navigators are still working with a lot of the folks in helping them finish job training.
Before Hurricane Ian they had about 210 reconnectors, she said, and now have well over 1,200 individuals reaping the benefits from working alongside a navigator.
“We know a lot of people are really struggling to get into well-paying jobs. It’s much more difficult for our workforce to be able to fill in demand jobs,” LeSage said.
Navigators will work with any adult that has been out of school but needs to return to school to get into a well-paying job. They help remove the barriers that typically prevent someone from finishing training for a job, often staying for a period of time after they have a job.
“They help navigate the workforce system, nonprofit and social services in the community,” LeSage said, adding they will also help them overcome some of the challenges preventing them from changing their lives. “There were a lot of resources in the community post Hurricane Ian. A lot of people don’t know how to find them or access them. The navigators are able to leverage relationships and (show) how to get through some of the barriers and be able to finish education and get into a career.”
LeSage said immediately after Hurricane Ian they accessed their Collaboratory building which, because of a sustainability design and ability to handle water onsite, was in fantastic shape. They used it as an opportunity to partner with emergency responders, who slept there and ate there for a few weeks.
“It was somewhat of an emergency shelter for folks serving the community,” LeSage said.
They worked in partnership with the Collier and Charlotte Community Foundations as well, as it was an incredibly important and crucial role in emergency response. Each foundation received $125,000 from the fund to assist in rebuilding Southwest Florida.
Some of the funds also went to support some other organizations doing work in direct response to the storm, such as Lee County Legal Aid, which received a grant to work on legal issues folks are facing in regards to insurance and housing issues as a result of the storm.
LeSage said they also used the funding to go to an arts and culture grant for organizations that had capital improvement needs that they were not able to fully fund. By getting the arts and culture community back up and running they would help those in the tourism community while supporting the community to get them back to a sense of normalcy.
“The role of a community foundation is really to help the community leverage what exists in terms of assets whether its donations of funding, or organizations that are out there doing really important work and looking at opportunities to get a community back on its feet,” she said. “We are managing all of this based on relationships and hopefully trusts our organization has and maintains in the community.”