Florida members need your help
in wake of Hurricane Charley

When Hurricane Charley ripped through Florida last month, it left more than 100 members of the Florida Education Association (FEA) in Charlotte, DeSoto, and Hardee Counties homeless and more than 600 with severely damaged homes.

Thousands of others suffered varying degrees of damage from the storm that destroyed more than 12,000 homes and severely damaged more than 20,000 others.

In Charlotte, DeSoto, and Hardee Counties, as well as in parts of Polk, Osceola, and Orange Counties, many schools were demolished or severely damaged and many teachers, school employees, and students there face a year of double shifts.

This is one of the eight Charlotte County schools destroyed or severely damaged by Hurricane Charley. But Florida Education Association leaders advise that members who are victims of the storm need financial assistance right now, not school supplies.

The FEA, an NEA affiliate, acted quickly to create the Hurricane Charley Relief Fund to bring direct assistance to members. FEA, NEA, the American Federation of Teachers, and a number of state and national Association staff unions have contributed to the fund, but the Florida members also need the help of their colleagues across the country.

The American Red Cross, government disaster relief agencies, and others have been everything they can to deliver assistance, but there are immediate and very real needs beyond emergency shelter and low-cost loans.

As the FEA officers reported in a damage update:

"One elementary school teacher was set to move on the weekend that Charley passed through. But the storm destroyed her new home and she has only a matter of days to leave her old place – with nowhere to go.

"Another Title I resource teacher is trying to scrape by in a severely damaged home. Her husband’s business was lost, and they spent the last of their money on a generator. She also lost all her teaching material that she had gathered over 29 years."

This report was from FEA President Andy Ford, First Vice-President Joanne McCall; and Vice-President for Financial Affairs Clara Cook. They wrote:

"Many of you have offered to send school supplies and other material contributions. Thank you for these generous offers, but for now, please hold on to them. Right now, there is no place to store materials in the affected counties and, until a more normal routine is established, they simply can’t handle those items. The immediate need is for financial assistance."