SF. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Fall is upon us, which means great weather and more people around.

That gave Matt Shapiro an idea. Shapiro is the managing director of SHAPIRO’S Gallery.

“Toward the end of the summer, we kind of talked to various companies and said, ‘Let’s do some kind of party to celebrate the end of summer, the beginning of fall, the cooler weather,'” he said.

Then Hurricane Helene hit.

“We transitioned a little bit to start supporting the community. Then came Hurricane Milton,” he said.

Two hurricanes and unprecedented devastation for St. Pete got him even more excited about the block party.

Michelle Richards, CEO of Allelo, helped bring Shapiro’s idea to life.

“With everything going on, we have to do this. The St. Pete community is everything to us. So we have to give back and we’ve been extremely fortunate in both storms and we’re thankful and grateful for that, let’s be honest, and we we have to be there for the community for that reason,” she said.

Six businesses joined: Allelo Mediterranean Restaurant, SHAPIRO’S Gallery, Parkshore Grill, Paciugo Gelato & Caffe, Style Clothing and EnnYe African Boutique.

The money goes to the following three organizations:

“I don’t think I got a text quick enough to be honest, like, ‘Oh my god, yeah, we want to be involved.’ So it was very important to us to make sure that the funds from this event stayed here in St. Pete,” Richards recalled.
The Southern Smoke Foundation has funded 29 people for a total of $42,600 and is still reviewing the remaining 65 applications. They received 3,500 applications for Helene and Milton and reviewed anywhere from 60 to 100 cases per week.

Until October 31, We Are St. Pete received $832,141.57 in donations from the community.

Feeding Tampa Bay helped with 2,094,511 meals at 132 emergency distributions in our hardest hit areas, in addition to our daily efforts, for a total of 4,566,555.