Charity of the Month: Hurricane Irma Relief Efforts

Charity of the Month is a way Team Tizzel is helping to support some very worthy organizations. As part of this program, we will dedicate a post to a charity that we will sponsor through the month by donating Holly's training run money.

In September we supported the Red Cross with a $125 donation to help with Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.

October's Charities

Jost Van Dyke Preservation Society
Virgin Unite
Cow Wreck Beach Fund Page
Perfect Pineapple Inn Fund Page

Although we've never been through a full-blown hurricane, we've been impacted by hurricanes. In 1995, our wedding had to be relocated from St. Thomas and our honeymoon from Antigua due to hurricane damage. In 1999 a hurricane hovered over St. Kitts for days, causing us to switch vacation plans last minute to Jamaica (and thank goodness - we love Jamaica). Last year our resort in the Bahamas received some damage, causing it to close and divert us to Grenada. These annoyances are nothing compared to the havoc inflicted by Harvey, Irma, and Maria.

We were nervous about Irma. It was on a direct path to the British Virgin Islands, a place we've enjoyed year-after-year since 2003. We've built friendships with people on the small islands of Jost Van Dyke (JVD) and Anegada and have even helped some of them in developing their business. The small inn we stayed at in Jost Van Dyke kept our personal beach towels for us each year. We nervously awaited the social media updates and were in awe once we started to read the posts. The first picture we saw was of Ivan's in White Bay, JVD. A few years ago the main building was refurbished, now it's mostly gone. The new gift shop at Cow Wreck in Anegada is gone. The Perfect Pineapple cottage we stayed in for years...gone. One friend from Jost who is now in the US did not hear from her son and family for almost a week. About 200 people live on each island and after the storms many have gone off-island to stay with family.

Ivan's on White Bay, Jost Van Dyke

Cow Wreck after

Great Harbor Jost Van Dyke

Perfect Pineapple Inn

The ferry landed on a restaurant

We've stood on this house's porch

This month we are going to do something different by supporting four separate funds. We'll donate $100 to the Virgin Unite relief fund. We caught a glimpse of Sir Richard Branson on Anegada in 2016. We know his organization will do its best to help the region. We are also sending $100 to the Jost Van Dykes Preservation Society. Their goal is to raise funds to support their community in humanitarian and reconstruction efforts. Currently they are trying to buy some heavy equipment to help with cleanup. Not sure how that effort is going since Maria hit Puerto Rico (where the equipment was located). We're also making smaller donations to funding pages setup for our friends at Cow Wreck Beach Bar/Inn on Anegada and Perfect Pineapple Inn on Jost Van Dyke. These are family businesses that have treated us, and many others, very well over the years.

This video from Beme News highlights Jost Van Dyke and shows how the community is coming together (Our first time at that yellow restaurant we may have been sitting where that boat landed).