Donations pile up in Sanford for Abaco relief

One woman celebrates her birthday helping others

SANFORD. Fla – Air Unlimited's hangar has been transformed into a warehouse full of food marked with messages of love, diapers and other supplies waiting to be flown to the storm-ravaged Bahamas.

Melissa Yergey Daily is one of the organizers and for her birthday, she's exactly where she wants to be.

Yergey Daily spent the morning unloading trucks, separating supplies and loading them onto planes, one of which her husband flies.

"It's wonderful. I'm hoping to see a lot of planes go out here today," Yergey Daily said.

Yergey Daily said she has a special connection to the Bahamas.

"My family spent every summer of my childhood in the Bahamas. We were on a boat and then later, when my parents got a little older, they decided to buy a home over there," she said.

That is, until Hurricane Dorian destroyed it. She said her brothers are now helping with the relief efforts there and also in search of finding something very special to the family.

"We had a plaque for my mother. We spread her ashes there and I told my brothers that I didn't really care what they brought back, as long as they found the plaque, and this morning, they did," she said.

Yergey Daily showed News 6 the picture and held back tears as she described what the plaque meant to her.

"There's good things and the bad. And that's what this is all about. There's good things and the bad."

She said people have been very generous with donations and they'll continue to collect but said they need more help bringing them over.

"If you know anybody with an aircraft and a pilot who's willing to fly, we'll get them loaded and we'll get them out of here. We really need pilots and we really need planes," Yergey Daily said.

Yergey Daily said they also need more money for fuel.

Click on this link to make a donation: https://www.gofundme.com/f/abaco-relief