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Pay to play for Bahamas relief

October 23, 2019 by Julius Luchs Leave a Comment

Florida Tech volleyball representatives posing with their prizes from the volleyball game. A participant in the event caught a shark. Picture // Ashley Letendre

With Hurricane Dorian devastating the Bahamas and leaving the country in need of funding for repairs, Florida Tech’s Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society hosted a Bahamas relief fundraiser.

According to Ashley Letendre, the president of Phi Eta Sigma, the honor society has previously hosted activities and events to help benefit the community and the school.

“We have done community service events before,” Letendre said. “We help bring emotional support dogs to campus during finals week. We hope to find ways to help students every day.”

This time around, Phi Eta Sigma sought to get the student body involved and raise money for the Bahamas.

“We wanted to do a fundraiser that we knew a lot of students would come to,” Letendre said. “Volleyball was our choice for an activity because most people can play that sport.”

Ashley Faubion, the advisor for the event, said teams paid ten dollars to play while individuals paid five.

The tournament was held at Southgate, with pizza being donated by the Civil Engagement office.

The volleyball tournament had first place, second place and third place winners, with prizes being awarded to podium winners.

Representatives of the Florida Tech Volleyball Club took first place, while Gabe Quinn and Spencer Somes from Residence Life placed second.

Third place went to representatives of SGA. Eric Hu, representative of the volleyball club, took home a pair of wireless bluetooth speakers as his winning prize.

“It felt nice to play for a good cause,” Hu said. Letendre said the fundraiser was able to raise 120 dollars.

Phi Eta Sigma plans to donate the money to the Salvation Army, which has a direct link to the Bahamas relief effort.

Letendre said the event was a lot of fun, and it was great to see people come out and support a good cause.

Filed Under: Clubs, Sports, World Tagged With: athletes, bahamas, dorian, hurricane, pay to play, play, prizes, relief, volleyball

Florida Tech helps Bahamas in relief missions

September 17, 2019 by Olivia McKelvey Leave a Comment

CSA receives tremendous donations, such as home supplies and money, to send to the Bahamas after the Hurricane Dorian disaster. Photo by Francesco Iseza.

Since Dorian hit the Bahamas two weeks ago, Florida Tech has proved to be a united front, sending thousands of supplies over on countless relief missions.

The university’s College of Aeronautics alumni group was the first to spring to action by coordinating relief missions out of the Orlando Melbourne International Airport as early as Thursday, Sept. 5, just four days after the hurricane made landfall in the Bahamas.

Issac Silver, the associate dean of the College of Aeronautics, was one of the pilots that flew supplies over via Florida Tech’s Navajo Chieftain Piper aircraft.

“When we first landed in Abaco, it was basically like a post-apocalyptic movie,” Silver said. “There were virtually no people, maybe one or two here and there, but everything and everyone was practically gone.”

So far, Silver has made eight trips to multiple locations on the northern Bahamas island of Abaco, including Marsh Harbor and Sandy Point.

In addition to flying the Navajo, Silver has also been flying a C-47— Tico Belle.

Tico Belle was used during D-day to drop allied paratroopers over France.

The plane now serves as a memorial plane at Valiant Air Command, a warbird museum located at the Space Coast Regional Airport in Brevard County.

So far, approximately 4,000 pounds of supplies have been flown over on the Navajo Chieftain and an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 pounds on the Tico Belle.

A cart pulls a wagon of supplies to the plane. Photo // Adam Lowenstein

Silver also touched on the fact that the relief missions have evolved over the past week and will continue to do so with the possibility of future relief missions.

The first time the wheels hit the ground in the Bahamas, the goal was to provide water and food to the hundreds of people waiting to be evacuated.

However, as more and more people escaped the aftermath and devastation, that quickly changed.

“Our next mission will actually be a mobile field hospital, but there is still a huge need for humanitarian support,” Silver said.

From Boy Scout troops to local churches, numerous organizations have been volunteering alongside Florida Tech students.

The community outreach has been tremendous based off of testimonials from Alex Coultroup.

A graduate student majoring in aviation human factors, Coultroup was one individual who took a different perspective on the types of donations she wanted to send.

“As someone who cares a lot about women’s issues, I wanted to collect things like tampons and pads, diapers and wipes to fulfill those needs,” Colutroup said.

Raising awareness through her extensive updates on social media, Coultorup also brought attention to the value of cash donations, citing that for one round trip to fly Tico Belle it costs $4,500 for oil, fuel and maintenance.

Volunteers and students packing supplies to send on planes. Photo // Adam Lowenstein

Working beside Colutroup, Florida Tech alumni Marteen Edwards also devoted his time to loading up supplies onto planes.

A recent graduate with a masters in aviation management, the Barbados native explained how growing up in the Caribbean made him understand how powerful and damaging a natural disaster like this could be.

“It’s knowing the type of destructive power and knowing what a hurricane can do to your country that when you see it happen to someone else you’re inclined to give them a hand,” Edwards said.

In the midst of loading supplies onto the Tico Belle and other Florida Tech Navajo planes, Edwards heard many tales of what the islands now looked like.

“The most common thing I hear from pilots coming back is that the devastation is tremendous, and it looks as if a bomb had just gone off,” Edwards said.

The bottled water, hygiene products, batteries, cans of tuna fish and other perishable food items that Colutroup and Edwards have been loading onto planes have been coming from numerous student organizations on campus.

For example, Florida Tech’s student athletic advisory committee recently partnered up with the women’s soccer team at their first home game on Sept. 7.

“One of of SAAC’s main purposes is to have a positive influence on the community,” said Vanessa Rubio, a senior on the softball team and the president of SAAC. “After seeing the devastation in the Bahamas, there was no way we could just stand by and do nothing,” Rubio said.

Another student organization partaking in supply drives was the Caribbean Student Association.

Florida Tech’s CSA chapter has multiple Bahamian students.

All of them reported that their families were safe on the island; however, some of them have friends and others they are waiting to hear back from.

Malika Forbes, the vice president of CSA and native to Nassau, said that they have raised $700 in cash donations and collected roughly 500 pounds of supplies.

“What we keep trying to say is yes, it happened to the Bahamas, but it could happen anywhere,” Forbes said. “As Caribbean students, we need to step up and take action because if it was any other island we would be doing the exact same thing.”

To date, 13,000 people are missing in the Bahamas, 15,000 are in need of shelter or food based on reports from the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency and 50 are dead with that number expected to rise according to reports from CNN and USA Today.

Florida Tech’s president T. Dwayne McCay elaborated on how the university’s diverse student body—representing over 125 countries—demonstrates how a global and connected campus can lead to strides in humanitarian efforts.

“We see firsthand how compassion knows no borders,” McCay stated in an email. “One of our goals as a university is to help develop global citizens, and part of achieving that is to demonstrate through our actions the love and concern we have for those who may be struggling.”

Furthermore, Dr. McCay said this was not the first time Florida Tech has participated in a relief mission.

When hurricane Michael hit the panhandle last year, and when Maria slashed into Puerto Rico in 2017, Florida Tech was there, aiding in supply deliveries and evacuations.

“We got lucky this time when the storm stayed off our coast,” McCay stated. “At some point, when we are not as lucky, someone will help us. Human beings must take care of each other, and this is a way we can make a difference.”

Filed Under: News, World Tagged With: bahamas, csa, donations, florida tech, hurricane, red cross, relief, supplies

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