Convoy to leave Sunday for Fla.
Floyd County sheriff’s deputies may be spending some time in a Florida jail next week.
They haven’t done anything wrong. In fact, they’re going to help Florida residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, but with no hotels available to them, the local sheriff joked that they may have to bunk up at the jail.
The seven staff members and three volunteers from the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office leaving for Florida on Sunday are fine with those accommodations. They’re going there to serve, not to be pampered.
The trip is part of Rome GaCares, an effort to lend assistance in the wake of the recent hurricanes. A recent trip to Conroe, Texas, sent six tractor- trailers loaded with supplies.
This trip to Glades County, Florida — just outside Fort Myers — will take four tractor-trailers full of supplies.
Two of those are coming from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and two
are from Floyd County.
“We were trying to go through the sheriff’s association to find out who might have the greatest need,” said Tom Caldwell, Chief Deputy with the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office. “We happened to get in touch with the sheriff in Glades County and he said they needed help. They need man power assistance as well as supplies.”
Caldwell is asking
Rome and Floyd County residents who might want to donate, to do so before 4 p.m. today. Until then, a warehouse at 1929 Broad St., beside North Rome Church of God, will be open, and volunteers will be taking donations of all sorts.
The convoy of tractortrailers, as well as sheriff’s office staff members and volunteers, will leave Rome on Sunday and stay in Florida for a week, assisting in any way they can.
Some of the items most needed, according to Caldwell, are cleaning supplies, mops, shovels, large industrial garbage bags, insect repellent, laundry and dish- washing detergent, clothes lines and clothes pins and diapers.
The warehouse will be open until 4 p.m. today. Between now and then anyone wanting to make a donation (no matter how large or small) can drive up and volunteers will take them.
An interesting twist on the story, Caldwell noted, is that only after deciding to send the convoy to Glades County, was he told that their sheriff, David Hardin, is a
Floyd County native, growing up in Rome and Cave Spring.
“That makes this trip a little more special,” Caldwell said. “We didn’t know that when we decided on Glades County and we would have helped them anyway, but to learn that the sheriff there is a Floyd County native makes it that more special that we have the opportunity to help them.”