Salvation Army Continues Isaias Relief Across Walton County
The Salvation Army is still distributing food boxes and cleaning supplies across Walton County nearly two weeks after Hurricane Isaias. The mobile relief effort — which already served two Freeport meal sites during the first week of recovery — will continue wherever the need is greatest, aid workers said.
Some Walton County families are still without power and basic supplies ten days after the storm made landfall, and many do not have a working refrigerator to keep food in. The nonprofit is stepping in with essential supplies as residents work to get back on their feet, providing nonperishable food, premade meal boxes and cleaning supplies.
The organization has been moving between locations across the Panhandle based on need. In Ponce de Leon, Salvation Army staff handed out more than 600 boxes of food and supplies, and many of those who came picked up extra boxes for neighbors who could not make it out.
The relief footprint has included Freeport since the early days of the recovery. The Salvation Army served free meals at two Freeport sites — the Choctaw Beach Community Center and the Walton County Planning Department parking lot on State Highway 20 East — during the first week after the storm, part of a meal schedule coordinated through Walton County Emergency Management.
Jessica Shaw, Salvation Army corps officer for Panama City, said residents keep showing up not only for boxes but to lend a hand. “They’re just extremely grateful for what we have been doing,” Shaw said, adding that many “keep coming back and helping bring out their food boxes to the community members that are unable to get out here.”
Sandra Vecchio, a Ponce de Leon resident who has lived there 20 years, said neighbors have carried the recovery together. “We look out for each other even when there’s not a hurricane,” she said. When a tree came down on her property, a neighbor cut it up and hauled it away.
For many families, recovery does not stop when the storm passes — debris still has to be cleared and homes still need cleaning. Salvation Army officials said the organization will keep providing food and supplies as long as there is a need in Walton County, and its crews will continue to go where they are needed.
