BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) — Hurricane season has arrived and a local teenager is trying to help his community prepare.
Henry Jiang is collecting the items needed to assemble at least 200 disaster preparedness kits.
Henry Jiang’s father died when Henry was just 13 years old. The United Way of Northwest Florida stepped in to help. Now, Henry is returning the favor by volunteering and creating his own service project.
“Being able to experience that community impact that they can have and how they can just absolutely just completely change someone’s life for the better and give them hope, that really inspired me,” Jiang said.
Having lived through Hurricane Michael, he knows the importance of being prepared.
“If these are the kinds of things that we can remember to have in our house, that we as organizations that Henry as Henry can help our community members with, it means that we are that much closer to being prepared if the worst happens again,” United Way of Northwest Florida CEO Gina Littleton said.
“Rather than dealing with sort of the aftermath, we could prepare for before the hurricane and be able to provide families with the resources that they need to survive,” Jiang said.
United Way and Rebuild Bay County Inc. partnered together to help Jiang with the hurricane preparedness kits.
“It is always great to get the youth involved in our community resilience efforts and here we are stepping up and wanting to do this project is right, folks, right within what we were looking to do as well so to be able to support him it was a natural fit for us,” Rebuild Bay County Inc. Director Donna Pilson said.
Organizers said elderly and physically challenged residents will get priority in receiving the kits.
Below you can find a complete list of items and where you can donate:
