ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The need from both storms has grown and is not impacting countless Bay Area communities.
People need everything from food, clean clothes and housing.
Local non-profit are working hard to fill in the gaps for those in need.
It’s the approach Reach St. Pete Executive Director, Alexia Morrison is using to get essentials together in the driveway in front of her home.
“When you hear when people call in, the texts that are coming in, the voicemails when I’m talking to people any one of y’all will do this too,” she said.
But it’s what she’s forced to do after the people she normally serves in food deserts recently expanded.
“Our mission is to provide essential resources to people experiencing financial hardships, homelessness, inequities, at risk situations. As y’all can imagine with both hurricanes, that’s majority of our community,” Morrison said.
Her team is normally able to provide groceries and fresh produce from their decommissioned public transit bus turned grocery store but now they’re shifting to other needs. https://reachstpete.org/hurricane
“We’re doing all of this without a home site,” said Morrison.” We’re doing all of this completely mobile. We normally have our bus but our bus battery went out during the storm so we’re without a bus. We’ve been operating out of parking lots and our homes to make all of this happen.”
Because there’s so much they need, Morrison said they asked for help themselves. Organizations like Community Foundation Tampa Bay stepped in.
“We chose to fund Reach St. Pete. They applied on our critical needs list and they are serving those who are impacted by hurricane Helene and Milton. They were one of the first non-profits that really decided to step up in the immediate relief to support others,” Community Foundation Tampa Bay, Senior Director of Community Investment, Brandi Sanchez.
The Speer Dream Foundation is also donating to Reach St. Pete and other organizations. They’re offering help for those in need also at: https://speerdream.org/hurricanerecovery/
Reach St. Pete needs to deliver all of those essential items, so they got help with that too.
“Door dash is letting us use their logistics, their drivers, their maps and then they’re sending their dashers out to us and then we’re boxing up all of the orders so people can go online, they’ll place an order from a menu, we box all of that up, whatever they ordered and door dash will drop it straight to their doorstep,” Morrison said.
With help from volunteers, Morrison said she’s continuing the well-oiled community needs machine.
“I have people who are homebound, people who have chronic illnesses, people who lost their homes in the flood. I mean you name it, it’s just about everyone. So, this initiative is really important because it’s taking it straight to them. All they have to do is fill out that application online and we’ll bring it right to them,” Morrison said. https://forms.monday.com/forms/0cdfe456565d34fcd3e3f8d7fa3e9a3e?r=use1
