A Florida Family In Need- The Donato Family

My name is Nicole Rose

I am raising money for my sister (Julia) & her fiancé’s family, the Donatos, in Buckingham, Florida. They have lost everything due to damage from hurricane Ian (clothes, cars, beds, furniture, memories).

We watched the storm on and off for days preparing our house as much as possible on such short notice since it wasn't supposed to hit us. We packed some emergency bags and essential documents. Secured our chicken coop and supplies for our five dogs. We were not planning to evacuate and didn’t think we would get ANY damage. We went to sleep thinking everything would be okay, putting faith in god. Lenny was woken up at about 1 am with a strange feeling and went outside to check our property and the ditches around it. The ditches had started to fill up with rain water, and he quickly came inside, woke us all up, and we fled to my parent's house just before a huge oak tree came down, blocking our road. We stayed there most of the storm, worried about surviving and what our house would look like when the sun came up. The storm did ease up a bit around 7 pm Weds night. We tried to reach our house to see the damage but could not get through any of the roads due to downed trees, power lines and rain water. The wind was still whipping. We had to go back. We rode out the remainder of the night at my parent's house, and it was good that we did.

We tried to get back to our house at 7 am Thursday. Thank god some people had begun to cut trees blocking roads, but when we got to our street, we couldn’t get down it. We had to get out of the truck, climb through trees, and wade through water to get to our beautiful home. All of our cars were destroyed. There was debris all over the yard and house. At this point, we had made our way up to the house, where we noticed the wind had destroyed our windows to the point they were all pushed in. We still didn’t think water had made it into the house until Lenny opened the front door. As we stepped foot into our home we realized everything was completely destroyed. Our stuff was floating and everything we owned was sitting in water which we assumed was from the damage to the windows. Our property outside, our beautiful yard, pool, fire pit, chicken coop, cottage and shed destroyed. It looked like our life was put in something and spit out all over the area. An oak tree had fallen on the chicken coop and completely destroyed it, along with all of our fencing. By the grace of god, the chickens survived. We were all devastated and in total shock as we did not think this would ever happen to us. Once the shock wore off, we all began to do what was needed to save as much as we could. We’ve constantly been working since we were able to reach the home to try to save clothes and valuable items.

Anything could help. Even a small amount. We are trying to live daily without a house or cars. Thank God we all survived. The five of us, five dogs and four chickens are now without a home, but we are alive. That is all we need to make it through, and the support from you all.

Truly from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you.

Love the Donato Family

#DonatoStrong❤️