OPEN LETTER TO THE CITIZENS OF CEDAR KEY
2024 November 4
To the Citizens of Cedar Key,
You may have noticed a group of young adults, in blue tee shirts, working around our island to help clean up after the storm. About twenty kids and a few more mature folks from a group called Friend Ships drove all the way from Lake Charles, Louisiana, to help us folks in Cedar Key. They brought everything that they needed, cook tent and all. You might have seen them camped at the City Park.
You would see them at: Rains Beach, deep into mangroves, muck, and bugs, a; storm drains, getting out all of the storm debris; home and business sites, pulling down ceilings along with the insulation; all over town on their hands and knees, picking up the smallest pieces of stuff; or At the Cedar Ky community Garden working to help rebuild the site. They are doing all this on their own dime while working for approximately 2,000 hours to help our citizens and our island.
The only thing they asked of the city was where they could make camp and what work could they do to help Cedar Key. I worked with them for multiple hours. Those kids were totally awesome; it would be good if more kids could be that way.
So if you could, please do send them a thank you note to show your appreciation for all of the work that they did to help our citizens and our island to recover from the storm. You might consider including a donation, so that, in the future, others can be helped. During their two weeks stay here, they fell in love our island, commenting especially how friendly we islanders are. They were all dragging their feet when it came time to be leaving.
Thank you and all the best.
Tom Deverin
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