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We learn about the work being done right now by The United Way of Lee, Hendry, Glades and Okeechobee. They’re partnering with the Collaboratory in downtown Fort Myers which is raising money through the SWFL Emergency Relief Fund. To get a sense of what they’re focusing on right now, and the work they’re doing managing the 2-1-1 Crisis Helpline, we talk Jeannine Joy, President and CEO of The United Way of Lee, Hendry, Glades, and Okeechobee.We also get a first-take on Hurricane Ian’s ecological impact. Ian brought historic storm surge levels in excess of 12 feet in some places. It’s the kind of storm surge emergency managers say they’ve always feared but that we’ve never really experienced in this part of Florida.

Hurricane Ian washed thousands of boats onto land all along the coast of Southwest Florida, and sank many as well. We talk with someone from the Boat Owners Association of The United States to find out who is responsible for removing or salvaging them.And when a disaster like Hurricane Ian unfolds The American Red Cross is there before, during, and after the storm. The non-profit humanitarian organization currently has more than 1,800 disaster workers and volunteers on the ground across the affected communities.

Anyone who spends money on anything — which is basically everyone — knows that we’re living in a time of high inflation. From groceries and gas, to home values and rent prices, and new and used car values, consumers in the U.S. are spending more on most essential items. To try to get a handle on what makes these post-pandemic shutdown economic times so unique, we talk with Matthew C. Klein, founder of The Overshoot, an online publication that focuses on the intersection of economics, finance, business, and public policy.

In his latest book, “Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause,” retired U.S. Army Brigadier General TySeidule writes about growing up in Virginia revering Confederate General Robert E. Lee. He says that from his southern childhood to the time he spent serving in the U.S. Army every part of his life reinforced the Lost Cause myth: that Lee was the greatest man who ever lived, and that the Confederates were underdogs who lost the Civil War with honor — a position he now deeply regrets and works to refute.

The Harry Chapin Food Bank in Fort Myers has been providing food for people in need across southwest Florida since 1983. Over the decades, it has faced trying times like during the great recession in 2008 and 2009; and during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. And now they’re facing another wave of challenges due to rising inflation and high fuel costs. We sit down with president & CEO, Richard LeBer, to get an update on how they’re handling these trying economic times and learn what people can do to help them in their mission.

Dr. Michael Burton is the new director of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Southwest Florida Research and Education Center. He leads a team of researchers who work to provide farmers with the best information possible for them to be successful from their 320-acre facility in Immokalee.

The Southwest Florida Music and Education Center in Naples will soon be offering neurodivergent young adults a truly unique, comprehensive music education program to help them pursue careers in the music industry.

We speak with Desmond Meade, he was a driving force behind the passage of Amendment 4 to the Florida constitution passed by 65% of voters in 2018. Meade is President of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, Chair of Floridians for a Fair Democracy, and author of the book “Let My People Vote: My Battle to Restore the Civil Rights of Returning Citizens” which recounts his struggles with addiction and homelessness before turning his life toward public service and the Amendment 4 campaign.

From the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s there was a land boom in Florida driven by what were known as Installment Land Sales, which offered lots in Florida for as little as $10 down and $10 a month. They were aimed at retirees, and the lots sometimes turned out to be completely unusable, or at least not very desirable properties that regardless have left a mark on the sunshine state to this very day. We learn more about this history, and how it’s still shaping Florida living, from Dr. Jason Vuic, author of The Swamp Peddlers: How lot sellers, land scammers, and retirees built modern Florida and transformed the American Dream.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been all over the news lately. The massive, roughly 10-billion dollar space telescope has been jointly developed for decades by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Plans for it began forming as far back as the 1980s.The JWST will allow for observation of some of the most distant events and objects in the universe, including the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric information on potentially habitable exoplanets — those are planets orbiting stars other than our sun.