Meet the Sanders family and their beautiful daughter, Amoree.
Early in the morning on August 14, 2016 their apartment was flooded by the Amite River that had crested far above its normal banks and was now raging through their neighborhood. What is normally a 50 ft wide and 15 foot deep river became 10 miles wide and 46 feet deep.
Her father was trying to evacuate wading through floodwaters with Amoree on his shoulders, but the current was too hard and Amoree came loose!
As her terrified parents watched, Amoree was swept away by the current but suddenly popped back up and began to swim! Delasbar has been taking her to the Terrific Turtles Swimming Program at the YMCA and said that Amoree has been glued to the television, especially focused on watching Olympian Michael Phelps swim. Delasbar said that every time Phelps was on tv, Amoree would come running into the living room to watch him.
Those lessons and her interest in swimming paid off! Amoree was able to swim back to her father just in time for the whole family to be rescued by four unnamed heroes in a boat.
The Sanders family booked a hotel room but when they arrived at the hotel it was full. The hotel allowed the family to dry off and charge their phone in the lobby and helped them find another place to stay. They have a hotel room secured now for a week but no home to return to – everything was a total loss.
Our families know how difficult our children’s restrictive diets can be on a bright, sunny regular day. When you are in a crisis and have no way to feed your child Tyson chicken nuggets it can be difficult. When you are staying in a hotel room without a microwave or a refrigerator that can be nearly impossible.
Amoree is missing her Team Umizoomi DVDs and Millie Talking Doll. She also loves Sid the Science Kid DVDs. Let’s help her get some of the things that are most familiar to her as soon as we can – maybe someone could get Amoree something autographed by Michael Phelps!
When they stopped by this morning to pick up their emergency gift card to Walmart, Delasbar said she knew she was in the right place when she saw our Unlocking Autism license plate. Her family has #301 and has been in the UA family longer than we knew! It is a difficult way to meet each other but we are working together now to build a brighter future. Their car below was lost in the flood. Water rose until it was 1″ from the top of the vehicle.
The Sanders family has lost all of their clothing and would appreciate donations. If you box them and send them to Shelley Hendrix, Unlocking Autism, PO Box 41312, Baton Rouge, LA 70835 and write SANDERS FAMILY on the box, we will make sure they get them.
Amoree – Girls sizes 16 & 18 and shoes 4.5 to 5
Delasbar – Women’s 28 and shoe 11
Warren – 3X and 12 shoe
All donations made to Unlocking Autism via The Power of One right now are going to help Louisiana Flood Victims. You can make your tax deductible donation to Unlocking Autism and we will continue to provide gift cards to our families so they can get the items that will help their families personally rebuild. If you don’t want to send monetary donations, Flood Care Packages are a huge help to our families as well. You can find out what families need here.
Once the flood waters dry up and our families dry out, we will all be working together to ensure that an emergency plan is in place for our community – and available for other communities to adopt – so that no family is ever turned away from a shelter because they don’t take “people like this.”
With great thanks,
The Unlocking Autism Family
