Twenty-five years ago, Hurricane Andrew destroyed the Homestead area, including many of its day care centers.
It was then that Sue Loyzelle entered.
She was the director of the local YMCA at that time. After the storm, the city commissioned him to establish an emergency nursery at Harris Field - right at the Air Force Base in Homestead.
Wlrn.org it is reported that, Sue remembers how the emergency daycare came to be.
"We had 20 kids the first day and we grew up and grew up and we grew up to 200 kids and it was just a giant room and people from all over the country came and helped us because I was all volunteer."
And he continued "because we could not find our staff and the parents needed a place for their children so they could rebuild their lives. So parents line up at 4am just to get the first 200 points in daycare.
The military helped us a lot with feeding babies and children and providing the bedding, like washing everything for us at the military base. They would even go into their breaks and hold the babies. The children were really devastated and as if there was a storm or rain that freaked out.
We had a lot of diaper rash and impetigo due to the mosquitos and what is so hot. We put the water bottles in the sun to warm it so we could give to the baby baths because it was so hot. We had many volunteers who kept them occupied and distracted and did arts and crafts.
We had dance therapists who volunteered to come down and made them act like being a hurricane and moving in the wind. If it were not for the volunteers, we would never have had an emergency daycare and we would never have had all the people taken care of. "
This story, told by Sue Loyzelle, is part of an oral history series called "Miami Stories" - an association with the HistoryMiami Museum.
Fuente: wlrn.org
