Metropolitan Ministries receives holiday donations for struggling families

Hurricane Milton: One month into recovery

Ariel Plasencia reports

TAMPA - Twenty-five pallets of supplies arrived at Metropolitan Ministries’ Holiday Tent in Tampa Friday, all donated by people who live 1,200 miles away in Chicago.

"We have everything from clothes, shoes, baby toys, diapers, formula, animal care products, water, food: You name it, we pretty much got it," hurricane donation drive organizer Colleen Christman told FOX 13.

Christman lives in the Windy City. But her parents moved to Florida eight years ago and live in Boca Ciega.

"When Milton was projected to go right over our condo, it was time to leave," Colleen’s dad, Robert Kaspar, said.

Kaspar and Mary French evacuated to Chicago.

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"We thought for sure we weren't going to have our community when we came back," Christman’s stepmom, French, said.

And that concern -- Christman said -- was something she heard loud and clear from her parents and also at her Illinois workplace. Christman works for Sport Clips in Chicago where several customers had also evacuated from Florida.

"So we're hearing a lot of buzz in the chair, behind the chair from these clients about what's happening," Christman said.

Christman wanted to do something for Floridians. So she made a Facebook group and created an Amazon wishlist. She reached out to Sport Clips' clients and called other Illinois businesses.

Chicagoans started dropping off supplies at 53 Chicago and Wisconsin Sport Clips haircut locations.

Twnty-five pallets of supplies arrived at Metropolitan Ministries’ Holiday Tent in Tampa Friday, all donated by people who live 1,200 miles away in Chicago.

Clothes, diapers, personal care products, bikes, and kids’ toys were collected in just two weeks. Christman said Midwest Refrigerated Services donated a semitruck and a driver to transport all the supplies to Tampa Friday morning.

Now the nonprofit, Metropolitan Ministries, will get these items to those who need it most.

"The demand’s great," Metropolitan Ministries President and CEO Tim Marks said. "We know that there's more families that are going to come to us for the very first time, because they lost everything. We all know somebody who's lost everything."

This holiday season, Metropolitan Ministries expects to help 35,000 families, which is 5,000 more than they originally thought.

"Even though it's 30 days since the storm hit us, there are still families in crisis facing the storms of life, facing physical storms," Marks said.

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