Watson Family Hurricane Relief

Hi friends. We are the Watsons-Gordon, Aubree, and Ripp and we live in Naples, FL. First off let us say how grateful we are for all the people that have been praying for us since Hurricane Ian hit Florida. We have been so focused on getting the water out of our house and Gordon’s parents’ house (they lost nearly everything) the last few days, but all the messages, check ins, and prayers have been so appreciated.

A huge thank you to our local church, Venture Naples, as well as so many incredible friends who have helped us with our immediate needs here. Getting the water out and gutting the house quickly has likely allowed us to salvage more than we originally expected. We are absolutely undone by the willingness of those around us to love on us and get in the mess of it all to help us. It has been a beautiful form of love we have never experienced.

Now that we have nearly gotten through the immediate work of gutting our home, we are faced with the long term reality of our situation. We are looking at a very expensive rebuild and replacing process. We lost several vital large electronics/appliances such as our meat freezer, AC unit, pool pump, dishwasher, and large lawn mower. Aubree’s car is totaled and we have a lot of work to do on the house to make it livable again.

Thankfully Gordon’s boat is fine however, his business is very seasonal between November-May. The charter fleet here is anticipating a very slow tourist season given the destruction to our area so we can’t plan for his typical income. While his boat was fine, and that is HUGE, he lost quite a bit of expensive equipment, in rods/reels, ice maker, the lift for his boat, etc. All those losses mean that when he can take people fishing, there will be additional costs, so even within his business there has been significant loss.

We have no idea what insurance (home and car) or FEMA will be able to provide, we didn’t have flood insurance so it’s not likely to cover all our needs. But we have had SO many people offering to help, asking what they could do. If you feel led and want to help us financially in this unexpected and devastating time to replace what we’ve lost both in our home and in our business, we would be so grateful.

And even if you don’t, we would appreciate your prayers. This will be a long season, not just for us but for our whole community. God has been faithful and has given us peace in the midst of all of it. With everything going on we still have so much to be grateful for. Thank you for your time, your prayers, and your kindness.

**We set a big goal because we didn’t want to keep upping it as we hit smaller goals, this felt more transparent. It’s a goal but we’re grateful for any help. Anything that we don’t use, or insurance comes through on, we will be paying forward to those in our community**