ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Fall is here, which means nice weather and more people outside.

This is what gave Matt Shapiro an idea. Shapiro is the general director of SHAPIRO gallery.

“Toward the end of the summer, I kind of talked to the different businesses and said, ‘Let’s have a kind of block party to celebrate the end of summer, the beginning of fall, the weather cooler,’” he said.

Then Hurricane Helene hit.

“We kind of made a little transition to start supporting the community. Then Hurricane Milton happened,” he said.

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

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

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

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

The money is donated to the following three organizations:

“I don’t think I got a text message quickly enough to be honest, like, ‘Oh my God, yes, we want to be involved.’ So it was very important for 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 remainder of the 65 applications. They have received 3,500 applications for Hélène and Milton and review between 60 and 100 cases per week.

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

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