Hurricane Maria forced thousands of Puerto Ricans to move to Florida. Over the past few months, many of those families have left hotels and found their first apartment and home.

  • 'Mustard Seed' is helping Puerto Rican families furnish home
  • Non-profit has already helped 32 families 
  • Collab. w/ 110 agencies to ID families who need help

But even with a new keys in hand, a lot of those families don’t have the money to buy a bed, chairs or even a table to furnish their new dwelling.

Iris Ramos and her family were facing that same situation, until they were connected with the Mustard Seed of Central Florida, a non-profit furniture bank. 

“After Maria, I lost everything. The only thing I have is my family,” Ramos said.

She and her family came here on a ship on Oct. 3 after her granddaughter got sick. Their family stayed with friends for the first few months, and for the last three months have been living at a hotel.

“It’s hard, but it’s better than to stay on the street,” Ramos said with a shrug. 

But with some help, she is now renting an apartment in North Orlando. The problem is she has nothing but the keys and her clothes.

“Almost every single family that we have served so far from Puerto Rico has had nothing but what fits in a suitcase,” said Kathy Baldwin, The Mustard Seed Central Florida, Executive Director.

To date, Mustard Seed has helped 32 families from just Puerto Rico and that number keeps growing. 

“And we have three families to six families a day coming in,” Baldwin said. “If someone is sleeping on the floor or if someone is eating on the floor, doesn’t mean that they lost anything, but that means they certainly need assistance.”

Keeping up with the demand is not easy. For every 100 beds donated, Mustard Seed said they really only can use about 30 because of sanitary reasons or wear-and-tear.

So the rest of the donations get recycled by volunteers. The raw materials are then sold to help fund the giving operation.

For Ramos, the gift of furniture is huge.

“My new home. I love my Puerto Rico, but I don’t have nothing there, I need to stay here,” Ramos said. 

Ramos does plan to make Orlando her permanent new city. 

As for Mustard Seed, they work with 110 collaborating agencies to find people like Ramos. And along with their furniture bank, they also have a clothing voucher program.