TAMPA – Twenty-five pallets of supplies, all donated by people living 1,200 miles from Chicago, arrived at the Metropolitan Ministries Holiday Pavilion in Tampa on Friday.

“We’ve got everything from clothes to shoes to baby toys to diapers to formula to pet care to water to food: you name it, we’ve pretty much got it,” Hurricane fundraiser organizer Colleen Christman told FOX 13.

Christman lives in the Windy City. However, his family moved to Florida eight years ago and he lives in Boca Ciega.

“When the plan was for Milton to attack our apartment, it was time to leave,” said Robert Kaspar, Colleen’s father.

Kaspar and Mary French were evacuated to Chicago.

FOX 13 is partnering with Metropolitan Ministries to support the Backpacks of Hope campaign

“We were sure we wouldn’t have our community when we came back,” said French, Christman’s stepmother.

And that concern, Christman said, was something he heard loud and clear from his parents, as well as from his workplace in Illinois. Christman works for Sport Clips in Chicago, where many customers were also evacuated from Florida.

“So behind the chair, we’re hearing a lot of buzz from these customers about what’s going on,” Christman said.

Christman wanted to do something for Floridians. So he started a Facebook group and created an Amazon wish list. He reached out to Sport Clips’ customers and called other Illinois businesses.

Chicagoans began dropping off supplies at Chicago and Wisconsin Sport Clips’ 53 haircut locations.

25 pallets of supplies, all donated by people living 1,200 miles from Chicago, arrived at the Metropolitan Ministries Holiday Pavilion in Tampa on Friday.

Clothes, diapers, personal care products, bicycles and children’s toys were collected in just two weeks. Christman said Midwest Refrigeration Services donated a semi-truck and a driver to transport all the supplies to Tampa on Friday morning.

Now the nonprofit Metropolitan Ministries will deliver these items to those who need them most.

“The demand is huge,” said Metropolitan Ministries President and CEO Tim Marks. “We know there are more families coming to us for the first time because they’ve lost everything. We all know someone who’s lost everything.”

This holiday season, Metropolitan Ministries expects to assist 35,000 families, 5,000 more than they originally thought.

“Even though it’s been 30 days since the storm hit us, there are still families in crisis who are facing life storms, who are facing physical storms,” Marks said.

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