Transcript
What inspires you from WFSU Public Media? Here's this week's Voices That Inspire. I'm Tom Dersepolsky and I'm the founder and president of Ballester and Marketing Communications right here in Tallahassee. We woke up like a lot of people after the storm opened the front door to see what it looked like and fitted damage in our neighborhood and trees down and such. So we just got to work helping our neighbors and we were up helping a widow who lives on our cul-de-sac clean up her yard. Stephanie said, Tom, my mom's a widow. We need to get over the blondes down and help and I said, okay, let's just finish this yard and then we'll head over there. We got there that evening and we're speechless and you wake up the next day and all you can do is just get to work and I think that's what the people in the region are doing. They wake up every day and they go out and they get to work, rebuild their lives and we just happen in the right place to kind of apply our time and talents. Mine in particular with communications and sharing what was going on over there with the rest of the world through social media and public relations and such and I was there for 22 days straight that hurricane making landfall until Christmas just feels like one big blur and I know it still is for so many people. My brother-in-law, he's a police chief and another brother-in-law is in charge of the control for that region. They said, hey, could you come to the EOC in the morning? We might want some guidance on a few things with regard to donations and volunteers and I said, yeah, Cheryl, I'll help out. We saw vehicles come in from 15 different states. We collected probably over 100,000 pounds of clothing and we don't know how many times we filled and emptied the warehouse with food. That good and that ability to serve as in every single one of us. It doesn't take a big profound personality or someone with a lot of wealth to make a difference. It takes you and me just showing up and serving one another. I'm Tom Dersepolskian, the founder and president of Boundstone Marketing Communications here in Tallahassee. You're listening to Voices That Inspire.