Charity brings bicycles and love to Immokalee in the wake of Hurricane Irma

Mission Love Seeds is spreading its love in Immokalee.

The faith-based charity, based in Destin, has been on a mission to help the residents of the poor farming town since Hurricane Irma hit in September, leaving many families in distress. 

With the support of another small charity and the generosity of partnering businesses, Mission Love Seeds last month delivered 112 unassembled new Huffy bicycles to Pinecrest Elementary School in Immokalee. The school has more than 760 students, all living at or below the poverty line.

On Feb. 13, looking like a Ford or GM assembly line, deputies with the Collier County Sheriff's Office put the bikes together.

It all culminated in handing them out during a special event at the school Thursday. 

The bikes went to kids who didn't get one in December when a Naples church gave about 200 new ones to the school — and Mission Love Seeds, with help from another Destin-based charity, Generous Heart Ministry, provided hundreds more to its needy students. 

"I said, 'Somehow, some way, we will make sure every child has a brand-new bike,'" said Barbi Carroll, president and founder of Mission Love Seeds.  

Mission accomplished — and each family who came to the event also got a free bottle of laundry detergent.

Gabideli Morales, 8, one of the first students to pick up a bike Thursday, smiled and giggled as she worked to find her balance on her new set of wheels. It was her first bike, and she got a few riding tips from Principal Susan Jordan, who held it steady for her to give it a try.

"That was fun," Jordan said.

Eugenio Arevalo, 9, grinned as he wheeled his bike away but looked a little reluctant. He said he was a little nervous to ride it, having only had a tricycle.

"It's very hard on the two," he said. "But riding the three or four, it's fine."

His mother, Andrea Arevalo, said she was thankful for the donation of bikes.

"I love it," she said. "They did a great job. They made a lot of kids happy — it's very nice of them."

Some bikes will be personally delivered to kids who couldn't make it to the event.

The latest gift of bikes, like the last one, took a group effort.

Last month Two Men and a Truck delivered the bikes to the school in boxes. 

"Anytime we call them, they never turn us down — never," Carroll said of the mover.

The bikes were purchased from a local Walmart, which provided a $100 gift card toward the purchase and ordered more than enough bikes to ensure Mission Love Seeds reached its goal of making sure every student at Pinecrest had a new one.

"That's a blessing," Carroll said. 

For 15 years Carroll and her husband, John Hawbaker, owned a winter home in Naples before moving to Destin, so they knew of the struggles Immokalee residents faced, even before Irma ravaged the town.

Volunteers for Mission Love Seeds have been to Immokalee three times since the hurricane. The storm left many of the town's families homeless or living in severely damaged homes.

The charity's first visit came in October when Carroll, Hawbaker and a driver delivered a semi-truck full of supplies to the school and Immokalee First Seminole Baptist Church for distribution to families and children in need. Supplies included food, water, pillows from Sam's Club, handmade afghans and more than 500 backpacks stuffed with school supplies.

A week before Christmas a small army of volunteers returned to Immokalee, delivering hundreds of new and used bicycles for children and adults — and banana boxes filled with snacks, Christmas candy and other food, and thousands of toys. The missionaries hosted a holiday party for students at Pinecrest to give out the gifts.

Before the December visit, Barbi's sister Lura Counts, an Ohioan with a winter home in Sarasota, collected enough money to donate nearly 120 new bikes as a birthday present to herself, and she shipped them directly to the school.

"Growing up we had people like this that helped us," Counts said. "I think that's why it's so important."

Despite her sister's generosity and the many others who donated money or bikes, Joyce Barrett, a volunteer for Mission Love Seeds, saw more than 100 kids at Pinecrest who didn't get one in December and agreed to provide 60 bicycles — and Counts and her boyfriend, Richard Mounts, helped with more bikes. Together Barrett and Counts, with a handful of others, provided the money for all 112 bicycles.                .          

Generous Hearts Ministry helped raise the money for the first batch of bikes after sharing the need with its network of volunteers and donors. 

"We don't cross over getting the same funds from the same people," said Jane Carron, founder of Generous Hearts Ministry. "So consequently, when we join together on projects, we have multiple avenues of funds helping us."

Together the two charities have given about 500 bikes to families and children in Immokalee.

Carron joined the mission trip in December, packing her RV to the brim with toys and other supplies her organization collected and purchased with donated money. Her husband, Bob, came with her and helped hand out the toys.

"He was Santa, and I was Santa's helper," she said. "You know that just added an extra element to the project, and it is one we will remember the rest of our lives." 

She'll never forget the smiles on the children's faces when they walked into the room and saw all the presents. 

"They just came up and gave us hugs and thanked us," Carron said. "It was really quite remarkable, how appreciative they were." 

She feels fortunate to come from such a giving community that can make a difference in people's lives.

"Destin is a very generous town," she said. "We just happen to live in a place where people are willing to give, and I think that makes a huge difference. They help locally, but they help globally."

Generous Hearts Ministry's primary mission is to help single moms. On her first visit to Immokalee, Carron met a mother living in a room at a church with her youngest child.

She hopes to build a house for the family in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, which offers qualifying homebuyers new homes with affordable mortgages using volunteer labor and donated materials.

"We are just all about finding single mothers that need help," Carron said. "We'll get a team together this summer to start building that house if she gets approved." 

Carron was a single mother, so she said she has the heart to help them. She's done it globally, including providing loans for women to start new businesses in the Dominican Republic.

"I believe it's what helps keep the children off the streets, from being homeless," she said.  

Carron wants to continue helping families in Immokalee.

"I've really grown an attachment to the community," she said. "I just believe in going where the need is the greatest, where the poorest of the poor live." 

Mission Love Seeds will continue its outreach efforts in Immokalee "for years to come," Carroll said. 

After the hurricane, the charity helped start a food pantry and snack program at Pinecrest Elementary and plans to continue replenishing it with supplies.

In early spring another mission trip is planned to deliver food and other essentials to the school and to Immokalee Seminole First Baptist Church.

"We are planning another big Christmas party for the students this year and plan to deliver thousands of toys so no child is left out at Christmastime," Carroll said.

She hopes to tackle bigger issues in Immokalee. 

"In Immokalee right now they are living in what looks like slum trailers," she said. "What we want to do is do some research to see what we can do. Can we build houses? What can we do?"  

Although Immokalee is an eight- to 10-hour drive from Destin, the travel is worth it if the charity can make a difference in people's lives, Carroll said. 

Hotels in Naples and Fort Myers — including the Best Western Inn & Suites, the Suburban Extended Stay Hotel and Gulfcoast Inn — have supplied rooms at no cost to volunteers when they visit, which has helped keep the cost of the relief efforts down.

"We're just learning as we go what the need is," Carroll said. "I know there is a huge need there because there is so much poverty there." 

Carroll founded Mission Love Seeds in 2004 after her neighbor's housekeeper from the Philippines shared pictures of the poverty-stricken areas she came from, where people live in makeshift homes made from salvaged wood, cardboard and metal, with dirt for floors and no electricity.

The charity's first mission was to collect money to send rice to the Philippines. From there it blossomed. 

Mission Love Seeds has helped hundreds of families in the Philippines, Haiti, Africa and on the Gulf Coast, where Hurricane Katrina left many people homeless and jobless after it roared ashore with 130 mph winds in 2005.

After Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on the Texas coast last year, the charity was there, sending trucks and trailers filled with water, food and other relief supplies. 

Mission Love Seeds has helped improve a school and drilled a water well in Kenya and built five worship centers for villages in the Philippines, with another on the way.

"When God speaks to my heart to start a project, we just step out in faith, and God provides everything that is needed," Carroll said. 

For more information on the charity visit missionloveseeds.org.