Salvation Army volunteers helping those impacted by Hurricane Ian

SPRINGFIELD, MA (WGGB/WSHM) - Many people in Florida are picking up the pieces after the Category 4 Hurricane Ian tore through parts of the Sunshine State, but volunteers were ready to go Thursday to serve those residents affected.

We checked in with salvation army volunteers in florida.

After assessing the damage to their own building, they jumped into action, feeding and supporting those in need.

“There was a lot of uncertainty yesterday,” said Capt. Israel Roseno with the Salvation Army.

Roseno spent Wednesday night in a shelter down in Port Charlotte, FL.

“…With my closest 500 friend and we watched the storm from inside the shelter,” Roseno added.

He told Western Mass News that the Salvation Army has been preparing for this storm for days.

“We stocked up on food. We stocked up on water. We have mobile feeding units called canteens,” Roseno explained.

On Thursday, Roseno and volunteers went to assess the damage to their Salvation Army building.

“Fences are down, signs were down. We saw some general areas outside that have been destroyed, some flooding in our parking lot,” Roseno noted.

After they deemed it safe, they instantly got to work feeding hundreds of people and at 3 p.m. Thursday, they had almost run out of meals for the day.

“We’ve been feeding people since about eight o’clock in the morning. We are close to a thousand meals right now. There’s still requests coming,” Roseno explained.

Roseno said the greatest need right now is even more than food. Their mission in the next coming days is to meet all the needs of the people affected.

“Whatever that need is. For some, it will be food. For some, it will be spiritual support, some will be emotional support. Even today as we were just prepping food and people were coming here, sometimes they didn’t want any food. All they wanted was for someone to listen,” Roseno added.

Right now, the Salvation Army said they could use monetary donations as they help in the hurricane relief efforts. You can CLICK HERE for more information or call (800) SAL-ARMY.

Copyright 2022. Western Mass News (WGGB/WSHM). All rights reserved.