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Volunteers help comfort victims of Irma's wrath

Early Sunday morning, Shauda Burdette learned of a dire need at the Lecanto High School evacuation shelter.

About 500 people, most of them elderly from Citrus County and other areas around the state, had left their homes to escape Hurricane Irma and arrived at the shelter with virtually nothing but the clothes they were wearing.

Burdette, executive director of the Citrus County Education Foundation, and her friend, Dr. Tara Connor, immediately started making calls and sending text messages to everyone they could think of, asking for blankets and pillows to take to the shelter.

Within three hours, everyone who needed one had a blanket and a pillow.

“It was amazing,” Burdette said.

Tara Bryant, a Citrus Hills resident, had received a text from Connor, which she forwarded to friends and also the pastors at her church, Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church in Lecanto.

One of the pastors, Brandon Lauranzon, called Bryant and said the church just happened to have 200 pillows and bedding, plus more than 100 washclothes, toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste and other hygiene items that the church had purchased to send to Texas for Hurricane Harvey relief.

“Brandon said, ‘Meet me at the church and we’ll take this stuff to the shelter,’ and within 30 minutes, my husband and I, another couple and Brandon had three vans loaded with pillows,” Bryant said.

Also, a group of her neighbors, including one woman who just happened to have 10 brand new blankets that she had just bought, gathered what they had to bring to the shelter.

“We also contacted Ruth Schlabach from Schlabach Security, and she started contacting people in Black Diamond, and she drove around Black Diamond and got items from there,” Burdette said.

Burdette also commended the people working at the shelter for their calm and patience.

“As we were dropping off blankets and pillows, one woman in particular was handing them out to people and she would say, ‘They’re not here yet, but I know more are coming, so just sit still and we’ll get you a pillow and a blanket.’ Then she’d run upstairs and there would be another carload, and then she’d run back down and hand them out,” Burdette said.

“It was everybody taking care of each other,” she said. “It was remarkable and sent a very clear message of community. I knew we could accomplish this quickly if we all just worked together.”

Contact Chronicle reporter Nancy Kennedy at 352-564-2927 or nkennedy@chronicle online.com.

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