A team of volunteers fanned out across a neighborhood in Port Charlotte Thursday morning in an effort to help with Hurricane Ian cleanup.
More than 150 volunteers from Team Depot, The Home Depot’s associate volunteer force, and another 30 to 50 volunteers from Team Rubicon, members of a veterans volunteer organization known as Greyshirts, arrived early to help residents.
Sean Viller, the Home Depot Foundation’s manager of national programs and partnerships, said the Foundation has committed up to $1 million to help communities in Hurricane Ian’s aftermath more than $5.5 million overall in 2022 to support disaster response efforts.
Efforts made by the volunteers included helping homeowners clean out homes, remove drywall and flooring, working with chainsaw teams and scouring the mobile home park area to clear debris.
"The Home Depot Foundation has a disaster response and long term recovery program," Viller said. "So when a disaster like Hurricane Ian happens, we start supporting our partner organizations that work nationally across the country as well as locally by providing them funding and supplies from our stores just to get them started in their response efforts. Today we're partnering with Team Rubicon, which is one of our oldest partnerships."
Viller said the volunteers were helping to gather debris and bring it out to the street so then it could be picked up and brought out of their area.
"Our support will not end after the response end," he said. "Our stores are here for the long term. Our associates are here for the long term and and long term recovery could last months if not years."
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