Good morning,
I wanted to report in from Panama City where, as you know, along with my wife Amy and a team from Pivot, have been helping to repair some of the damage left by Hurricane Michael. Thank you for being so supportive – financially and as cheerleaders. (Here’s a photo to the right of team members before we left. We cannot get a strong enough cell signal to send photos from here).
At the recommendation of Deerpoint Lake Church, where we are getting our “direction” we first went to the home of Patti Miller, a member of the church. A tree fell on her home and she was unable to live there. We worked on clearing her driveway on Thursday. As we were wrapping up for the day, a family approached us and said there was a couple not far from us that could use some help.
We went by the next morning to meet Shawn Waters. His driveway had not even been cleared yet. We learned from Shawn that his wife had just passed away from cancer on November 7th. We were shocked. He also said that he rents the house he lives in and the landlord offered no assistance with clearing the driveway or fixing the power pole in his yard. Shawn eventually was able to get several friends over to help move the power pole himself. We worked all day on clearing his driveway, and got the majority of it cleared with the exception of some larger items that we physically couldn’t move.
As we finished our day, we went back to the church to meet with Pastor Curtis Kent. We talked him through our experience, and he told us about their plan to help the community. He said they are trying to rent a Bobcat so they can begin to send it out when teams such Pivot’s come to help. This way they will have a way to move the bigger items that require heavy machinery.
He said that the Bobcat rental is $3,000 a month and they are currently waiting on the credit approval process before they are able to get the Bobcat. All of this was before I even told Curtis we were going to be giving them financial assistance. I then handed him the check from the money we raised, and said “Well, here is your first month’s rent.” Everyone is so appreciative of all of the work done but I can’t even begin to explain how bad it still is over here. This is going to take years.
Again, thank you to those who have given and thank you to those who still may.