“I just need peace and calm.”

These words, which many homeschooling parents have uttered in the heat of difficult moments, take on a whole new meaning when read in the context of disaster relief.

Unfortunately, Amber is familiar with that meaning. “Hurricane Helene is the third direct hit we’ve taken in 13 months,” she said. “I need sheets, blankets, and a bed. I need food in my fridge. I just need peace and calm.”

Amber and her husband, a pastor, had homeschooled their five children, ages 6 to 19, for a couple of years, when Hurricane Helene hit their town on the Florida coast in September 2024.

Originally, the family started homeschooling during the pandemic—primarily because their youngest child’s learning disabilities didn’t allow him to thrive in a traditional school setting.

“I was afraid to make the leap. Sounds silly now, but I was afraid of messing up,” Amber said. Once they began, Amber quickly realized how much of her kids’ lives she had been missing.

“Watching them learn something new and seeing their eyes light up when they figured out a challenging task was priceless,” she said. “Instead of hurried dinners, homework, and packing lunches, we [now have] later nights, taking walks, having bonfires together, watching movies and laughing together. I fell in love with spending time with my kids!”

Amber leaned into a “family style” homeschool. When a child has a question, they all research it together. “My kids are learning how to think for themselves. Learning the same thing allows us to have conversations about the topic,” she said. “It makes projects fun because everyone is involved.”

Homeschooling also accommodated the therapy visits and medical appointments her youngest son needed, allowing Amber to plan their school schedule around these times. But hurricanes? Those are another story.

“Growing up as a Floridian, hurricanes are something I’ve experienced all my life,” Amber said. “You prepare as needed. For me that means buying lots of water and batteries for flashlights, filling the bathtubs with water to flush toilets with when there’s no power, and planning food for us to eat for several days with no power.”

Hurricane Helene was something different.

Riding out the storm

Amber’s town fell in the direct path of three hurricanes (Idalia, Debbie, and Helene) in the space of just over a year—unheard of for their area. Nearly two years after Idalia, and a year after Debbie and Helene, evidence of the compounded destruction remains. But Helene was the worst.

Remembering the night Helene hit, Amber shared, “I truly don’t think people realize how hard recovering from a hurricane is, both mentally and physically. It was the most challenging experience of my life.”

Amber’s family, along with a few others, had chosen to ride out the storm together in the concrete church building where her husband pastors.

“We packed up important documents and irreplaceable items, not knowing if we would have a home to return to,” she said. “It’s a sick feeling driving away from your home knowing there’s nothing else you can do but protect your family by sheltering somewhere safe.”

They settled in at the church with air mattresses and food while they still had power.

“After dark, the hurricane started making landfall. Our phones signaled to take immediate cover. It wasn’t long until the power went out. That’s when the fear crept in,” Amber recalled. “The winds howled, and kids were crying. The church’s glass doors began to shake, so men took their belts off and tied the doors together and still had to manually hold them shut.”

Helene ripped a concrete pillar from the side of the church building and nearly tore off a steel pole from the roof near the steeple. Through the doors, they watched large trees sway and snap, including a massive oak which toppled on the garage of a neighboring house.

The eye of Helene brought a measure of calm to the group before they braced for the backside of the storm. “That’s when I received the notice from my home alarm system that there was motion detected,” Amber said. “A tree limb blew through the window, and the storm was now blowing in our home.”

Around 3 a.m., the storm finally passed, but downed trees prevented them from leaving the property. So the group tried to sleep as best they could at the church.

“It was dark and muggy. My mind was heavy. I had no idea if we even had a home to return to,” Amber said.

Surviving the aftermath

The next day, Amber and her family went into survival mode. Her husband contacted several relief organizations to set up a plan for getting aid to their area. For weeks afterwards, volunteers swarmed their town to pass out supplies, serve meals, tarp homes, and offer shower trailers, which were a tremendous blessing in the Florida heat with no electricity. All their kids pitched in as well, even though they too had been affected by the hurricane.

“Our kids were out there with us . . . handing out meals and supplies, directing traffic flow, and even holding ‘Jesus loves you’ signs,” she said.

Teams also came to sift through the rubble of homes, desperate to help hurricane victims reclaim something of their former lives.

“I watched someone dig and save baby pictures,” she added. “It is such an awful experience, yet through the recovery you saw neighbors helping neighbors. I’ll never forget a precious retired veteran coming through the meal line one day crying because he lost his home. All we could do is hug him, listen to him, and pray with him.”

Although there were many repairs that would have to be made to their own home, Amber kept her worries at bay by immersing herself in relief work at their church. The first week and a half after the hurricane, her family slept at the church on their air mattresses while waiting for power to be restored.

Eventually through, she had to deal with the mess of her own house. Three rooms were damaged by the tree limb, broken window, rain, and subsequent water damage.

“We were physically exhausted, but now the mental weight began for us,” Amber said. “We needed to get our home back in order for our kids. But now, you have to throw out spoiled food from your fridge and freezer, throw out furniture that’s gotten rained on from broken windows. And the unimaginable humidity with no electricity will drive anyone to the breaking point.”

Volunteers ripped out their carpet, dragged out water-logged furniture, and cleaned molding food from Amber’s kitchen.

“Some think once the power’s restored, life returns to normal, but it doesn’t,” she said. “The thing people don’t realize is the damage after the hurricane. It lingers. It changes your life. Insurance deductibles are high, then they depreciate your value so you rarely get enough to replace everything lost or damaged.

“You have to figure out how to rebuild and what you can afford to replace. There are so many emotions,” she added. “How do you choose what to replace and what to live without?”

Amber was dismayed to find that her homeschool curriculum had also been damaged. “My kids and I love to read,” she said. “We start every homeschool day reading together. We use Sonlight literature, and I had a stack of books on my bedside table that got destroyed by rain and glass from the broken window. I was told insurance would not replace our reading books.”

Rebuilding hope

One day while taking a break from cleanup, Amber saw a Facebook post from HSLDA about Disaster Relief Grants. She immediately applied.

“I hadn’t even thought about that part of life yet,” she said. “We were just making it from one mealtime to the next.”

A week later, Amber rejoiced to see an email approving her request for the grant.

“The HSLDA grant gave me immediate funds to replace food for our family. There is a [government] disaster program to help with food replacement, but it literally takes months before you receive it,” she said. “I had to replace bedding, buy supplies at the hardware store to secure our home, and pack up our belongings.”

“The grant money met a need before insurance money ever arrived. It was a financial blessing but even more, it addressed the emotional toll. Someone out there cared. We were being prayed for. We mattered.”

Several months later, Christmas brought special blessings. The family was able to move back into their home. Amber also received a Christmas card from HSLDA with a prayer inside.

“Again, my heart felt so loved,” Amber said. “I can’t even begin to express the gratitude I felt and the sense that God was working things on our behalf in ways I’d never imagined.”

Moving on, but never forgetting

In May, Amber’s husband accepted a new pastoring job in Western North Carolina, which Helene had also catastrophically damaged.

“We were thinking we left hurricanes behind, but then we moved to a place still dealing with recovery from the exact hurricane we experienced directly,” Amber said.

Their new church in North Carolina helped purchase a mobile home for a single mother and son who had lost everything to Helene. This gesture shifted Amber’s perspective.

“Everything I went through was bad, but I still had a home, and my kids still had their personal items. These families lost everything,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking! And so, here we go starting a new season of helping others.”

Nearly a year later, Amber still feels the effects of both Helene and the HSLDA Disaster Relief Grant she received.

“Once I start thinking back to that night, it’s hard to focus. My kids are still really scared anytime we have a storm. I hope telling my story allows others to see a glimpse of hurricane recovery.”

HSLDA donors played a big role in Amber’s family rebounding.

“To the donors that make these grants possible, saying ‘thank you’ doesn’t even seem adequate,” she said. “Yes, it met a need quickly and met a gap where insurance left. But you provided hope. You provided a reminder that we weren’t alone both in an earthly sense but also spiritually.”

On top of receiving the grant, HSLDA gave Amber a letter qualifying the family for discounts from participating homeschooling curriculum vendors. She used these discounts to purchase curriculum for the family for this fall.

Amber is looking to the future with hope. “1 Peter 5:10 says, ‘After your season of suffering, God in all His grace will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you,’” she said. “Because of the seed you sowed, I can attest that God has restored my home, confirmed He has a future for us, strengthened us through it all and established us to help others.

“Your seed grew,” she continued. “And I’ll never forget the impact on my life!”