PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — After major storms like Hurricane Idalia, people with so much compassion help others rebuild.
The flooding in some Tampa Bay area neighborhoods, like Shore Acres in St. Petersburg, was so severe that families will be cleaning up for months.
A local doctor whose home is also flooded uses her social media community to help her neighbors who need it the most.
Dr. Meghan Martin’s St. Pete home flooded during Hurricane Idalia, and now her family is working on the clean-up.
The drywall is ripped out. Her kids’ bedrooms are emptied. Many of their appliances and furniture are destroyed. Dr. Martin is known to many as BeachGem10 on TikTok.
She’s an emergency medicine physician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital and has developed a massive following on social media – more than 1.4 million followers on TikTok alone.
Dr. Martin documented the before, during, and after of Hurricane Idalia.
She told ABC Action News her friend encouraged her to create a GoFundMe because her social media community wanted to support Dr. Martin’s family in their time of need.
“I started the GoFundMe, and I was shocked with how fast it grew… to have this type of support. I wanted to help people in the neighborhood. I wanted to support them also,” said Dr. Martin.
Now, she is helping several of her neighbors pick up the pieces by giving them thousands of dollars raised by her online community.
She already gifted money to a family whose home burned during the hurricane, a woman who runs a local nonprofit, and a single mother who lives down the street.
This week, ABC Action News was there while she gave another gift to a neighbor down the street via a phone call.
She gifted $1000 to a school teacher who lives down the road. The teacher’s home also flooded, and she is working to save it because it’s been in her family for over 50 years.
“That phone call was really emotional. Clearly, she was so appreciative – what is your reaction to that?” said St. Germain.
“I think everyone that I have called, I have had some sort of connection with. She teaches at the middle school I went to. She is a neighbor who lives around the corner. These are our people. This is our community. So, it is emotional knowing they are struggling, and we are doing what we can to help,” said Dr. Martin.
You can check out Dr. Martin’s TikTok pagehere and there; you will also find a link to the GoFundMe she created.
