‘Angels’ From Missouri Deliver Post-Irma Help To Tampa

TAMPA, FL — Michael and Amber Myers may call Missouri home, but police say they more than earned “honorary Tampa citizen” status Thursday when they showed up to help with the city’s Hurricane Irma recovery efforts.

The Myers are volunteers with the North Carolina-based Avery’s Angels Gastroschisis Foundation. According to the Tampa Police Department, the two “drove from Missouri to drop off 100 cases of water, as well as diapers, for those families in our community still in need. They drove all the way here, stayed long enough to send their best wishes, drop off their gifts and turned around to head home.” (For more hurricane news or local news from Florida, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Tampa Patch. Click here to find your local Florida Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

The Myers’ donation came as Hillsborough County continued to collect supplies for residents still reeling from Irma’s impacts. The couple’s generosity, the police department reported on Facebook, has earned them a place in the Tampa family.

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The Myers, the agency told Patch, “were quite humble about any type of attention.” Even so, officers were able to snap a few photos of the couple and their donation before the two left for the drive back home. The couple's effort to help was “an amazing act of kindness."

Avery’s Angels is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing support for families whose children are born with gastroschisis. The condition is a birth defect that results in a baby’s intestines forming on the outside of the body, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC estimates more than 1,800 babies are born with the condition each year in the United States.

In addition to making the donation to the Tampa Police Department, the Myers also stopped in St. Petersburg to help three families, the Tampa Bay Times reported. The Myers’ donation was completely self-funded, including the rental of the van. The two took time off work to make the whirlwind trek to Tampa and back.

To find out more about making donations or picking up needed supplies, check out this related story: Hurricane Irma Recovery: Food Distribution Sites Open In Hillsborough.

Photo courtesy of the Tampa Police Department