SWFAA Chooses Charities for 2017 Giving Back

By Holli Noel, SWFAA Association Director

For 2017, we have established four focus charities, all of whom were present with special tables in the center of our March 31 Big League Trade Show Floor, where they received a ton of exposure and donations.

1. Wounded Veterans Relief Fund. This fund helps with transition for post 9/11 wounded veterans, including financial, jobs, housing, and moral support. We love this group! They will be the beneficiary of our May Golf Tournament.

2. Lee/Charlotte/Collier Homeless Coalitions.

a. Homeless Blessing Bags: At each SWFAA event, we are requesting donations of personal hygiene items— two specific items per event. Since the trade show, we have collected a couple hundred pounds of deodorants, soaps, toothbrushes, toothpastes, hand sanitizers, and other items. We are storing them and creating bags to personally distribute and also give to the coalitions who go out into the wooded areas to distribute.

b. Feeding the Homeless: On Easter weekend, we joined Come as You Are Ministries to serve Easter dinner to homeless in a local park. SWFAA members brought potluck dishes, Easter eggs filled with candy, and Blessing Bags. This organization meets every Saturday at the park, so we hope to continue this event quarterly.
Harry Chapin Food Bank. We have dates set to volunteer in July and September in both Fort Myers and Naples. We'll be organizing donations in their warehouses.

3. Cape Coral Animal Shelter. We are helping with fundraising for groundbreaking for this much needed no-kill shelter. Currently there is no animal shelter in this area. We'll be using 50/50 money from our Spring Fling Networking Mixer this month, as well as soliciting donations throughout the year.

In addition, SWFAA was able to step up to the plate in an emergency situation this month.

Fire at Bear Creek Apartments. Twelve families (47 individuals including children) were displaced April 10 because of a roof fire that destroyed a building a one of our member communities. We received a phone call from the regional manager within an hour of the fire, and we jumped into action! We immediately reached out to all of our members requesting vacancies and any special waivers that might be available to get these folks re-homed. We got a great response, however, because Bear Creek is a tax credit property, not all who volunteered were eligible. As of last week, eight of the 12 families were in transition to new homes.

We established two emergency donation stations at properties in Lee and Collier counties and spread the word via email and social media. By last Wednesday we had collected $1,400 in cash donations, which we used to purchase Walmart gift cards. By last Friday, we had collected another $1,200, and distributed $100 bills to each family, along with tons of donated food, clothing, and household items — including some from supplier members as far away as New Jersey — at an event at the property, with the Collier County Sheriff's Office. The Sheriff's office provided Easter baskets for the children affected. The event received media coverage,

In addition, we have requested furniture donations and asked properties to be on the lookout for any gently used furniture that may be abandoned from move-outs. We have secured complimentary garages at one Spectra Luxury Apartments (a new lease-up property) to store any furniture donations for the victims until they are rehoused.