#ForRicky

Pictured is little Ricky, a young boy with down syndrome.

His family was living in one of the trailers in Immokalee I visited last Wednesday. Ricky has been through 4 operations in his young life, 2 of them for his heart condition. There is a major concern for him living in these conditions, which can significantly increase his chance of pneumonia. Their family along with many others have extensive damages from Hurricane Irma which includes: a leaking roof, missing panels exposing the home to environmental conditions, electrical issues (no way of cooking food/no A/C) and now mold growing inside their home. Both families I visited were denied any help by FEMA and do not have the means to fix these dire needs. Everyone in their family works full time, so they have not been able to “stand in the lines” to receive supplies or assistance. They humbly told me to “help others” as they felt others needed help more than they did.

We hope, as the community sees the dire needs of these families they can contribute to quickly improving their living conditions. We have been working with community leaders to help to determine what families like these need, so we can help them recover. To further assist in the recovery all Robert of Philadelphia locations will be closed Monday, October 9th. Columbus Day. We usually close this day for a company retreat however this year we are renting a bus for the ROP family (50 of us) to go Immokalee and work with the distribution/ contribution of aid to families like Ricky’s and others in need at the Immokalee Technical College which is working with the school district to serve as a central location for donations. Distributing to all of the Immokalee school’s children.

Although, our trip with our ROP family will be this Monday, we will continue to help until all these needs of the community have been met.

Thank you for your continued love and support of the Robert of Philadelphia family!