My husband and I would like to thank your wonderful community from the bottom of our hearts. We live in the Florida Keys and recently had to evacuate due to hurricane Irma. We had nowhere to go, just packed what we could and our dog and drove. After driving 21 hours and feeling defeated, exhausted, frustrated we found a room at the Comfort Suites in Cullman.

The hotel gave us a room to stay, allowed our dog, and every staff member was over the top helpful during our stay, especially Denise at the front desk. The Desperation Church came to the hotel and cooked a nice lunch for us even though it was cold and raining outside that day, and they would not allow us to give them any money for the food. Our dog has food allergies and can only eat chicken, we were in need of food for her so went to Zaxby’s restaurant and they cooked chicken breasts for her and cut it up for us.

While we were there we needed repairs to our truck as the shocks broke on the drive there and the spare tire was not usable; we went to the (Ekenrod) Ford repair dealer in town and they quickly scheduled the repairs, drove my husband back and forth to the hotel during the repair time and were extremely nice.

As we made our plans to return home, we were looking for gas cans to take fuel with us as we were unsure of the availability to get gas in Florida, we could not find any cans in town. We went to B&B Petroleum Company and a very generous man gave my husband a barrel and filled it with fuel, he would not accept any money for it; I can not even express how touched we both were at this generous gesture.

We also needed to bring some food home with us so we went to Warehouse Discount Groceries store and they were very kind to us and allowed us to bring our dog in with us while we bought our supplies. Every person we met in your wonderful town was so kind and understanding of our time of distress and treated us with the utmost care and respect. We have made it home and God blessed us with minimal damage, mainly just loss of trees in our yard; our home, vehicles and boats were undamaged. Many families here have lost everything and after experiencing the generosity of Cullman, it has renewed our faith in humanity and inspired us more than ever to help those in need in our community.

Thank you Cullman, Alabama for renewing our lives and getting us through the worst time of our lives. Bless your community and may you all know how special you are!

Thank you.

Robert and Tammie Corradi and dog, Meme.; Florida Keys