When your heart is breaking but you don’t know what to do...

It’s amazing what can change in a week.

Mostly perspective.

As you probably already know, Hurricane Helene roared through the Southeastern United States this week and has left a path of devastation in its wake.

We were fortunate enough to only experience the outer bands, which meant lots of rain, wind, and power outages.

But a lot of people we know weren’t so lucky.

Here in Florida, our previous hometown of Punta Gorda experienced the worst flooding it has ever had. We still have our home up there, which we now keep as a vacation rental. Thankfully it was spared, but so many were not. My husband Chuck helped some friends tear out wet drywall yesterday and said the whole town looks like a war zone, with furniture and debris piled on the streets. Almost everyone lost their vehicles as well.

And it’s the same story all the way up the West Coast of Florida.

But Florida is nothing compared to the devastation in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Whole towns have been wiped out, roads are destroyed, there’s no power, water plants are inoperable, and hundreds of people are still missing.

And my heart is breaking.

Because I know what they’re going through right now.

We’ve been through a couple of major hurricanes now, in our 20 years of living in Florida, and it’s not easy to forget how simultaneously surreal and stressful it is.

There’s the immediate aftermath, where you have to come to grips with the horror of the devastation. That’s the part the media usually reports on.

But then the rest of the world moves on. And you’re left to pick up the pieces. Sometimes it takes months. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes there’s nothing left to pick up.

That’s the part that’s really hard.

All that to say, there are a lot of people in our country who are struggling and suffering right now. They don’t have power or the ability to communicate with the outside world. They don’t have food or water. They might not even be able to flush their toilets. Some have lost absolutely everything.

And if your heart is breaking for them like mine is, but you don’t know what to do or how you can possibly help, here are a few ideas.

1. Offer shelter and/or supplies - If you know anyone whose home is uninhabitable because of the storm, offer a place for them to stay. If it’s not feasible to have them in your own home, consider helping them find a hotel or donating points so they can stay. Same goes for supplies and necessities that they might need.

2. Donate money - There are a number of nonprofit organizations providing disaster relief in all of the different areas affected by the storm. It’s hard to know where to send your money, so I’ll give you two recommendations based on my own experiences. 

The Salvation Army - After Hurricane Charley in 2004, we personally received a lot of help from the Salvation Army. They do great work in the immediate aftermath, helping with meals, water, and supplies.

Samaritan’s Purse - After Hurricane Ian in 2022, we were impressed by the ongoing work that Samaritan’s Purse did in our community to assist with long-term cleanup.

There are also local relief funds that have been set up in the affected areas if you want to donate to one particular region:

• The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina

• Eastern Tennessee Foundation

• Florida Disaster Fund

3. Donate time - All of these organizations—and many others—are accepting volunteers to help with the immense work of cleanup and rebuilding. After Hurricane Ian, Samaritan’s Purse set up their Fort Myers base at our church and stayed for six months. At any given time, they had 100 volunteers from all over the country. There’s plenty of work to do!

It’s pretty easy to ignore disasters when you’re not directly affected by them. And that’s not a judgment, it’s just a fact. I do it too; we all do, because otherwise how could we even function? 

But this one hits close to home for me, and that makes it hard to ignore.

Teddy Roosevelt once said, “do what you can with what you have where you are.” Along those same lines, Fred Rogers once noted, “in times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.” 

In other words, there’s always something you can do, even if it doesn’t seem like enough.

So that’s my challenge for you this week—do something, anything, however small, to help someone this week. It doesn’t have to be a lot. But our ability to care about the plight of our fellow humans is what separates us from other animals.

And if you’re in the area that has been impacted by the storms, please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers.

Live with purpose, friends, and have a joy-filled week.

xoxo, Ruth

This week’s podcast episode…

What’s cooking in my kitchen…

Here’s the recipe I shared this past week:

The latest from my Instagram…

Instagram is my jam! If you’re there too, I’d love to connect with you—find me at @RuthSoukup or @ruthsoukupbiz for online business tips!

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