Milton recovery lingers as local groups offer aid

Roughly three weeks out from Hurricane Milton, volunteers say they are still seeing a need for food distribution and debris removal.

“We’re trying to give people that sense of hope that they haven’t been forgotten,” Venice-Nokomis Rotary Club President Casey Riley said.

That Rotary Club spearheaded a hurricane relief drive at the Venice Art Center recently, providing guidance, food and tools to roughly 200 people.

Some participants also came from fellow members in the Rotary district, including Fire and Rice owner Paul Schnidgall, of Naples, providing meals for attendees and for distribution to local families.

“We just wanted to come up and help,” he said.

Other agencies and organizations contributing to the drive included the Venice Police Department, city of Venice staff, the Venice Symphony, the Sertoma Club and Women’s Sertoma Club of Venice, Venice High School Athletics, and Girl Scouts of Sarasota County.

Members of START of Sarasota County, meanwhile, teamed up with the Osprey-Nokomis Chamber of Commerce and distributed soup to over 200 people outside the Paradise Grill on Laurel Avenue.

Mary Beth Hansen, the restaurant’s owner, recalled losing the roof in 2022 during Hurricane Ian; when Milton came through, the replaced roof received less damage.

Hansen herself donated the soup and helped get the word out, hoping to create a bubble of normalcy for “shell-shocked” customers and locals to unwind after Milton left.

Leftovers were donated to the Venice Community Center and the Nokomis Fire Department.

“It’s a collaborative effort,” START President Lise Mills said.

Paradise Grill has been hosting the Chamber’s “Halloween Ducks” as party prizes for those ordering drinks over the last few days; customers can either order the “Lucky Duck Drink” for $5 or add a duck to any drink for a $2 donation.

All proceeds from the party ducks will go toward fundraising for the Chamber’s Community Care Partners, including Habitat for Humanity, Nokomis Fire Department, Laurel Civic, Family Promise of South Sarasota County, Easterseals, and the United Way.

Hansen said that the drive has been popular with her customers, with 70 drinks going toward the cause in one night.

“People were clamoring for them,” she said, recalling the duck trading between customers.

Chamber President Dennis Bragg also noted that candy that would have been distributed as part of their trick-or-treat program had instead been given on to other organizations, including the YMCA, Laurel Civic, and Baypoint Church.

This way, he said, the Chamber can focus on hurricane relief while making sure kids have a safe Halloween where they are.

Part of that includes organizing volunteer crews to help with debris packaging; Hansen herself helped set up a crew to remove debris from the Lake Village RV park earlier in the month.

Some mobile home residents have told her that their property management have scaled back debris collection compared to previous storms, leaving individual residents to seek outside aid for removal.

Coastlife Church provided meals for more than 3,000 residents as of Oct. 16, thanks to a partnership with Chick-Fil-A.

Dillon Ritchie, the church’s executive director of operations, said that the partnership was crucial during a brief period when their building on U.S. 41 Bypass lost power; hot meals were made available with the restaurant’s existing stoves.

Church volunteers also went out to deliver tarps and food for two days, delivering to 400 families in mobile homes and providing cleaning supplies to 500 families post-storm.

Ritchie credits the church’s hurricane response to their pre-storm preparations, honed from experience in previous hurricanes like Ian.

Leadership made sure to contact community partners ahead of the storm and plan for where volunteers could be reached, whether or not electronic communication was available.

“What we’re doing is preparing for post-storm communication … we don’t want to move out until everyone is OK,” Ritchie said.

As church members began to convene after the storm, Ritchie said that they have seen a greater need for debris removal after Milton — particularly in mobile home communities like Venice Isles, Bay Indies, and Ridgewood.

START volunteers were out to local mobile home parks to provide cleaning supplies as well.

Mills said that the group largely works off of volunteers paying membership dues, to ensure that any money they raise and any volunteer time goes directly to the other organizations they help.

The group was founded in the Nokomis area in 2019, growing from six founding members to 150 volunteers currently.

“We’re always anxious for new members,” she said.

Riley said that he was glad to see some people that the Rotary has helped in the past few days come forward to offer their services as volunteers, delivering aid to others just as they had been helped.

He did note that some volunteers have scaled back their time as November approaches, as they have lined up to staff or monitor polling stations for Election Day or early voting.

However, the Rotary is planning to adjust their schedules to allow for new afternoon sessions where volunteers can come on after work or school.

Riley and Ritchie both praised Venice city staff for providing information about damage assessment after the storm, allowing their groups to pinpoint areas of greater need and mobilize resources.