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Local nonprofit wins national ‘Dreamer’ award

Ashley Morales

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A Time Magazine crew films a video profiling Rebuilding Together Tampa Bay, a 2024 winner of the publication’s annual “Dreamer of the Year” award. Photo provided.

A Tampa Bay nonprofit has received national recognition for its work helping families recover and rebuild after back-to-back storms last fall.

Each year, Time Magazine collaborates with American Family Insurance to honor a Dreamer of the Year, described as “a person or group working tirelessly to protect or restore dreams.” For 2024, Time celebrated the “fearless first responders of disaster recovery,” shining a spotlight on those who stepped up in the face of adversity. In recognition of its hurricane recovery efforts, Rebuilding Together Tampa Bay was named one of the three recipients of the Time Dreamer of the Year award.

Time Magazine’s Dreamer of the Year cover, featuring Rebuilding Together Tampa Bay CEO Jose Garcia (front, center).

Rebuilding Together Tampa Bay, the local affiliate of the Rebuilding Together national organization, is a nonprofit with a mission of repairing homes, revitalizing communities and rebuilding lives to create safe homes and communities. Some of Rebuilding Together Tampa Bay (RTTB)’s initiatives include repairing homes’ foundations and frameworks, providing no-cost preventive home modifications to people with mobility issues and other disabilities to improve accessibility, building affordable housing and repairing homes damaged by natural disasters. 

Rebuilding Together Tampa Bay’s Chief Executive Officer Jose Garcia said being awarded a Dreamer of the Year came as a complete surprise. He found out at a dinner reception for the magazine in New York City.

“We felt that it was recognizing the hard work that everybody here does to help everyone come back to their home in a safer, healthier manner. It wasn’t about me,” Garcia said. “It was about coming together to help homeowners, so this [award] was an incredible opportunity to showcase that.”

Following the devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, RTTB immediately mobilized to assist homeowners in rebuilding. Staff and volunteers began repairing numerous homes severely impacted by the storms and distributed hurricane relief kits to support community members in need.

“We set up several drive-throughs to make sure that people can sign up for our programs as they came to get water, tarps, food and supplies to clean,” Garcia said. “We have about 300 to 400 homeowners that we for sure will be able to help, and another 200 to 300 that we have to wait for insurance and FEMA first.”

Since the hurricanes came through, RTTB has repaired 96 homes and has another 40-50 currently under construction. Garcia said the process takes longer than a typical renovation.

“We often have to muck and gut part of the house, put the drywall back, make sure they have a functioning bathroom and kitchen and make sure the roof is replaced and fortified,” Garcia explained. “In case there is another storm coming up in a year or two from today, we have to make sure that roof can hold. The reality is that many of these homes are still located in a place where flooding may be damaging in the future.”

 

To deal with the massive influx of homes needing repairs, RTTB hired new staffers to tackle the increasing workload. Moving forward, the nonprofit will continue repairing homes and helping homeowners focus on future resiliency. Unlike other types of natural disasters that may be unpredictable, Garcia emphasized, hurricane season comes around every year in Florida and homeowners must be prepared for future storms.

“We have two more construction coordinators that will be focused on the home assessment. We hired another intake person who will focus only on making sure who qualifies [for our programs]. We want to do this as fast as possible, but with the best quality,” Garcia said.

“This is a long, long process. A lot of people are going to need a lot of help, and some of them don’t even know how much damage they have yet. But we know that the hurricane season will start again six months from today, so we want to make sure we are preparing them and the community.”

Portland Fire and Rescue and the American Family Insurance Response Team in Blair, Nebraska, were the other winners of Time’s 2024 Dreamer of the Year award.

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