Kiwanis Club of North Port helps community rebuild one year after Hurricane Ian

NORTH PORT, Fla. - One year ago, Classical Ballet Academy went dark, after Hurricane Ian destroyed Darli Iakovleva's studio.

Iakovleva’s talent for classical ballet inspires others as she teaches future generations of dancers in North Port.

Darli Iakovleva and her husband reopened less than eight months later.

"We are just feeling so grateful for the opportunity to be able to be reopened again," she said. "We were just so devastated. We were so sad. We had just started."

She and her husband rebuilt and reopened less than eight months later.

"We have had such wonderful support from the community," she shared.

Classical Ballet Academy went dark after Hurricane Ian.

Part of that support came from an unexpected call from Kiwanis Club of North Port.

READ: Hurricane Ian victims continue helping each other despite personal hardships one year later

"I started making some phone calls. Door were closed. I started calling around dance studios, and we got blessed first phone call," recalled volunteer Sheri Simon.

The Kiwanis had hundreds of ballet costumes that needed a new home.

"I had no idea, and they lived so close to me, I had no idea they had to move, their place was destroyed, so when she was telling me this I was like the door opened, and it was the right place at the right time, and it was a beautiful blessing for them as well as for us because we needed to close out our storage, the cost was too high," explained Simon.

The building the club once worked out of was also completely destroyed.

"We had a brand new portable building that we were going to Oct. 1st, we had great big plans because all of that stuff was in our building so without a building we had to put tarps out, get the donations that were coming in and get them to the families," said Elaine Allen-Emrich.

It didn’t stop President Elaine Allen-Emrich and Sheri Simon from continuing on.

READ: Venice Theatre is beacon of strength as community continues rebuilding a year after Hurricane Ian

"There was like a tree on my house but aside from that there were people who didn’t have food, so Kiwanis had to step in and get to areas where people may have forgotten about and make sure they were safe," said Allen-Emrich.

From food to clothing drives, the Kiwanis club pitched a tent and went to work wherever they could.

The Kiwanis Club of North still does not have a building.

"After the hurricane hit we really sprung into action to figure out how to get those donations that are coming in from Sarasota and other places out to our residents especially our children, we knew areas where it flooded up to their toilet bowls, and we knew that would impact families for a very long time," explained Allen-Emrich.

A year later, The Kiwanis Club of North Port remains without a building, but they continue to support and volunteer for the community.

"I don’t think you can put it into words the community coming together and serving people that really need it and what we had we could give and what we didn’t have we could purchase buy, and we are still helping a year later," said Simon.

The community is grateful.

"It just means the world to us, the community supporting us that’s what we are all about. We are all about supporting our dancers and the community we have here and just having the same feeling that we have from our community just makes us feel so welcome and so grateful to be here," said Iakovleva.

For more information on the Kiwanis Club of North Port visit or to help visit, click here.