Jackson County donates hurricane RV’s to Chipola Baptist Association

Jackson County Commissioners on Tuesday donated 20 RVs to the Chipola Baptist Association (CBA).

The RVs were provided to the county by FEMA as temporary living quarters for people displaced by Hurricane Michael. CBA managed the program and when the FEMA/county agreement governing their use expired, FEMA subsequently turned the RVs over permanently to the county to dispose of as it wished.

CBA leader Coba Beasley was praised by county officials Tuesday for his management of the program and handed over the units to his organization, which will now use them in its own mission to assist people in need going forward.

Beasley managed the staging and distribution of the RVs from the time they arrived in 2019, and also the modifications of them when that was necessary to accommodate the needs of individual families they moved in temporarily, often behind others that had lived in them for some weeks and left problems when they departed. The RVs weren’t all new, and some needed repairs before they were ever used here, as well. Together, the FEMA RVs housed 170 families here over roughly 18 months.

Beasley managed a similar program in Calhoun County at the same time, and, working with the North Florida Inland Long Term Recovery Group, he was also involved in the repair of roughly 640 homes damaged by the storm, with more of those repairs still to come. He is also involved in a children’s advocacy group, oversees a CBA food bank, and also assists victims of domestic violence.

County leaders expressed confidence that Beasley and his group will make good use of the RVs well into the future.