Like many people, Rod Martinez keeps personal items and papers in a storage unit. And, like many authors, while he has the digital versions of his stories, he wanted to keep the original paper copies.
Then, when Hurricane Milton made landfall, the stuff in his storage unit was submerged in 3 feet of water, forcing Martinez to toss out almost everything.
Martinez, a Temple Terrace writer, stumbled upon the Southern Arts Relief and Recovery Fund, a program awarding flexible grants to artists affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
“It’s a great opportunity for us who lost a lot during the storm,” Martinez said.
Affected artists in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia can apply for the $500 grant.
In just the first week of the fund being open, South Arts received 130 applications and raised over $250,000 in support, said Charles Phaneuf, South Arts vice president of strategy.
"Artists are so key to communities,” Phaneuf said. “They're key to economics, they're key to quality of life. They're key to really being inclusive and nobody was running a fund for artists so we said, 'Well, why don't we do that.' "
Instead of requiring artists to use the grant for a specific purpose, like materials or building repairs, Phaneuf said the fund can go toward anything the artists need.
He called this “trust-based philanthropy,” an understanding that the people closest to their work know what they need best.
"We're encouraging people to look at all of the different options they have available to them, but also just recognizing that we don't really know exactly what everybody needs,” Phaneuf said.
Martinez said this was helpful because he hadn’t received any money from FEMA or insurance companies to aid his recovery after Milton. But he got some financial relief from South Arts.
“It just helps with covering bills and covering stuff that was lost,” Martinez said.
South Arts is still raising money to go toward the hurricane relief fund, Phaneuf said.
He added he knows the $500 grant is just a fraction of what artists will need to recover from the storms — but he hopes it helps.
Part of Martinez’ recovery meant moving to a new storage unit away from a flood zone so he hopefully won’t experience the same loss in the future.
“For us creatives, this is another option you have that can help and I was lucky that I was able to get help,” he said.
To apply for assistance or to contribute to the fund, visit South Art’s website.
