Help my family rebuild after Hurricane Milton and Helene

Hi, my name is Sam and im making this fundraiser on the behalf of my family. I live in St. Petersburg Florida, and this is my story:

Over the last 2 weeks our home has been bombarded by storm after storm. Hurricand Helene came through and destroyed our house from the storm surge.

During the second day of break from school due to the bad weather, we noticed the street was flooding bad and stood on high alert. The city of St. Petersburg shut down the sewage plants and all the water had nowhere to go but up, and eventually into our home.

Slowly but surely every single room was covered in half a foot of water, ruining nearly all of our furniture and other personal items on the ground, including old precious photo albums and important things like technology and school laptops.

Racing to save all of my items, I had to quickly throw all my belongings into totes, trash bags and on my bed, attempting to keep everything safe from the flood. But none of us were quick enough, and suffered great loss, both in sentimental and financial value.

My dad’s grandfathers tools (my great grandfather) were all ruined, and while insurance may pay a part of getting new tools, nothing can replace the sentimental value of my late great grandfather.

My mom’s childhood photo albums, as well as family albums of things like their wedding day and the day I was born were also damaged by water, nothing was safe from the flood.

By the time the night had ended and the water had finally begun to recede, we had finally realized how much we actually lost.

2 Cars totaled, they were both older cars (2008 and 2003), and while they were running and had everything working, we had put more than the cars value into repairs over time, and despite the insurance company “reimbursing the cost”, it doesn’t begin to cover what it would take to get another car in the condition we had them in.

All of our walls and floors need to be replaced, with the insurance company refusing to pay for our electrical work, which is EXTREMELY expensive and it is so soul-crushing to see my parents worried about an issue they have no ability to control.

Throughout my childhood I’ve watched my parents slowly but surely climb the ladder

and save every penny to ensure that their family would have a successful future, certainly an “American dream” type of story, and it is heartbreaking to see the house they have lived in for over 20 years and poured blood sweat and tears (probably quite literally), demolished to a concrete floor and a frame, devoid of warmth, comfort, (walls), with nothing left but memories.

Just as we were staring to gather our bearings and get back on our feet, we were hit with the most devastating hurricane Florida has seen in a century, hurricane Milton.

FEMA has deemed our house “unlivable” and they need to replace everything due to “contamination” from the dirty storm water.

In the mean time, we are living on couches, we tried to get temporary housing but we can’t due to the high demand, and even if we got one all of our furniture is ruined so the best outlook would be sleeping bags.

Any contributions would be used to pay for repairs, food, anything the insurance won’t cover, and cleaning supplies.

I’m posting here to hopefully alleviate some of the financial burden off my parents, and restore some sort of normalcy to my life that has been (no pun intended) uprooted.

Thank you in advance, and I’ll personally reply to each donation with an explanation of where the funds are going and how it’s being contributed to my household.