Guest column: First Coast Relief Fund celebrates fifth anniversary
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As we warily start the 2021 hurricane season, we are also marking the fifth anniversary of the First Coast Relief Fund. It was around this time in 2016 when The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, the Jessie Ball du Pont Fund, and United Way of Northeast Florida began asking: how would we as a community respond philanthropically to a local disaster?
At the time, the question was hypothetical.
Months later, Hurricane Matthew blew through Northeast Florida, and the question was no longer hypothetical. With only a preliminary outline of a proposed disaster fund, the three original collaborators, plus the Jewish Federation and Foundation of Northeast Florida and United Way of St. Johns County, managed to launch Florida’s First Coast Relief Fund -- now the First Coast Relief Fund -- over the course of one long weekend. Mayor Lenny Curry and the City of Jacksonville publicly supported the effort and his staff participated in the grant distribution process. The Jessie Ball duPont Fund seeded the fund with $250,000 and provided an additional match of $250,000. Thus, the regionwide First Coast Relief Fund was born.