The hope for Hope Town
185 mph winds hitting the Grand Bahamas and Abaco islands; palm tree branches whipping through the dark tormented sky; couches, dining room sets reaching the second floor of flooding residential apartments, and panic within each soul on the island.
A 50-mile boat ride away the state of Florida worrying the impact it will face from Atlantic Hurricane Dorian.
Though the destruction stays in the Bahamas not even considering Florida as a target.
After hundreds of homes, and lives are changed by the wrath of Hurricane Dorian, South Florida disaster relief groups raise a hand to immediately help.
Hope 4 Hope Town a Hurricane relief fund that references back to one of the Bahamian districts is one of the groups working to help.
Julie Berry, the Principle of Marina Investment Group & Senior Vice President of Stiles Reality in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is a volunteer to the Hope 4 Hope Town group.
“People who have businesses, churches, professional organizations, came together to support the Bahamas”, Berry said.
Hope 4 Hope Town includes 20 Broward county businesses, including The Riverside Market.
Riverside Market at Cypress road in Planation is one of the Riverside Market locations accepting donations in part of Hope 4 Hope Town.
One of these volunteers is Aynsley Gramanis, she is filling up her pickup, outside the market on a hot Wednesday afternoon.
“I just want to help out, it’s hard to know where to donate when you don’t know where your money goes to” said Gramanis as she continues to find space in her truck for the load of donations.
The store is being packed with all different items requested by the Bahamian government. Donors and volunteers are coming in and out of the store. Volunteers are filling up trucks to be taken to the Harbour Towne Marina in Dania, Fla.
At the Harbour Towne Marina, volunteers sort out the multiple pickup truckloads of supplies left around to then be filled up into trailers to be shipped off.
Volunteers include; Molly Martinez, director of Logistics for Hope 4 Hope Town.
She said she started to be part of the help when she found out the storm was going to hit hard. She and a group of 14 of her friends whom all have their own sort of business wanted to team together and “Help and reach out”, said Martinez.
The donations seen at the marina are going to be shipped to Hope Town Volunteer and Fire Rescue, a small-town fire department within the Bahamas as one of the locations for donations to be sent to.
On Wednesday September 4, the marina reached its capacity and had to cut off accepting donations.
There were pallets full of gallons of water. One trailer filled up, and another one called to take more supplies.
“We’re working with distributors, so we just need the funds”, said Martinez.
Due to the amounts of donations Hope 4 Hope Town encourages members of the community to instead donate to their Go Fund Me page.
“Tens of thousands of tons” of supplies were being sent over as Berry describes, and they’re being shipped out “everyday”.
Volunteers worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. just to separate all the donations they already had, while people still brought in goods.
The most challenging part isn’t even collecting supplies, but the communication on how to get the supplies over and distributed to people in need.
“There’s violence, looting, desperation”, said Berry, saying supplies can just be dumped over.
“You have to communicate with somebody; NEMA, it’s like the Bahamian FEMA or Red Cross, and there are several other organizations to communicate supplies to”, Berry said.
As of now, Hope 4 Hope Town is accepting donations of supplies but may seize if there are too many supplies to sort out at the time.
“Have faith”, said Berry for people who are as well skeptical if their donations will make it to those that need it, “faith and trust that those supplies are going where they need to go”.
