Marco Once Again Proves We Are “Better Together”

Once again Marco Island residents and city staff demonstrated their ability to step up to the challenges facing their residents. Since Hurricane Ian slammed the island on Wednesday of last week as a Category 4 Hurricane, city staff have been working around the clock in a demonstration of its commitment to the community and its residents.

Police Chief Tracy Frazzano, early in her tenure as the city’s police chief, coined the phrase “Better Together,” and late last weekend she and her staff pulled together an idea as how to help residents who may have needed a little pick me up after the storm.

“I had asked Detective Sergeant Mark Huffor what we could do to join with others to make a difference in the recovery effort. The response from our staff and officers was overwhelming,” said Chief Frazzano.

“This has always been a community that has risen to a challenge when it comes to assisting folks when there is a need. A few calls to organizations such as local churches, organizations such as Al’s Pals, Our Daily Bread Food Pantry, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, the Salvation Army as well as the United Church and its Bargain Basket affiliate and before we knew it, we are hitting on all cylinders and we are here today making a difference,” said Sergeant Huffor.

The word would go out through different social media outlets and through the churches about the event and folks started showing up at St. Mark’s parking lot. It was like a well-oiled machine as the cars would enter into the parking lot to receive a bag of groceries. They could also park if they came by car and look through various items of donated clothing, for many had lost some if not all of what they had due to the flooding.

Cars would also enter the area and drop off food items to help with the efforts, some with linens, bedding and other houseware items. We even saw several others drop off a child’s bicycle and a number of individuals donated numerous gift cards for use in Publix or Winn-Dixie for food items.

A number of other cash donations came in to assist with the work being done by the Mobile Food Pantry and the efforts by Our Daily Bread Food Pantry.

Those that came that day could also take home a hot meal from the mobile Salvation Army Disaster Food Truck. That vehicle is a 22-foot freightliner diesel step van which is equipped with a 36-inch gas griddle, a four-burner gas grill, commercial microwave, commercial freezer and Onan 12kw generator and two 15,000 BTU Air Conditioners.

The day was a great success for those that took advantage of the kindness of others as well as proving Chief Frazzano’s “Better Together” philosophy seems to work pretty well.