About Brenda Perino

Our organization has been busy working on rescue, relief, and recovery efforts in partnership with local and State government and community agencies.  Community members who are displaced and/or have lost their belongings are selected to receive vouchers for $25, up to $100 per family. Vouchers are distributed in partnership with local and state agencies, at eight Goodwill SWFL Community Resource Centers (CRC), in the mobile CRC deployed to communities in critical need, and at Goodwill administration offices. They are redeemable in all SWFL Goodwill stores to purchase items to begin recovery. In total, Goodwill SWFL has distributed over 16,000 relief vouchers (worth over $400,000). Due to the growing need in the community, voucher requests continue to be received daily and will continue to increase as people transition out of friends/family members’ homes and/or shelters into their own place of residence again.

The Mobile (CRC) and eight CRCs located in Goodwill SWFL stores immediately began assisting people with completing FEMA, ACCESS, D-SNAP, unemployment assistance and other benefit applications. We are working with the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) taking donations they cannot process and through the vouchers, getting the goods back into the community to those who need them. We have been working with community partners and individuals on donation drives and have provided tarps, water, tents, air mattresses, sanitizers, clothes, socks, paper products, dog food, cat food, assortment of food and snacks, etc. Coordinators have been conducting outreach and providing essential resources to those people in our mission programs who are in need.