A Bay area man with family ties to Haiti has been collecting donations to send to the hurricane-ravaged island next month.

  • Bay area friends are asking for donations for Haiti
  • They still need tents, tarps, bottled water and non-perishable food
  • If you'd like to donate, email Anthony Pinnock at tonyp727.ap@gmail.com

“The hurricane came through and totally just messed up everything,” said Anthony Pinnock, 31. “Thank you for everyone who is donating stuff.”

Pinnock is a Seminole resident who’s storing many of the donated items in his garage. Hurricane Matthew hit Haiti three weeks ago as a Category 4 storm, leaving hundreds dead and a trail of destruction. Pinnock said his mom was on the island visiting relatives at the time.

“Once she found out that the storm was coming they already shut down the airports,” he said. “She was kind of stuck there until after the hurricane came through.”

Pinnock said Haiti residents are in desperate need of many items.

“The number one thing we really need is tents. There’s still a lot of people living on the streets,” he said. “Kitchen equipment, clothing, tarps, doors, anything that has been blown away or messed up by the hurricane.”

Non-perishable food and generators are also needed. The owner of TB Roofing and Construction, Lincoln Sziranko, 41, answered the call for help by donating more than 400 tarps.

“Send it all. They need it more than we do,” Sziranko said. “What’s a couple of thousand dollars to us, when it makes a world of difference down there?”

Sziranko also donated a pallet of water and appliances. Extra supplies TB Roofing and Construction had left over from repairing homes damaged by Hurricane Matthew on Florida’s East Coast.

“We were over there doing tarping and tree removal for most of the insurance companies,” he said. “We have over 200 roofs that we have to go back and start doing already. We’re expecting to do around 800 or 1,000, when it’s all said and done.”

Sziranko, a friend of Pinnock, also offered up his warehouse to store donated items from the public.

“Anybody that wants to donate anything at all, don’t be afraid. We have plenty of room,” he said. “You can drop it off, we’ll take it, we’ll inventory it, get the information over to Tony and get it sent down to Haiti.”

Sziranko’s warehouse is located at 7000 Bryan Dairy Rd., units A2, A3, & A4 in Seminole. If you'd like to donate items, you can contact Pinnock via email at tonyp727.ap@gmail.com.

The Seminole man said he’s going to drive all the donated items to Miami in mid-November and load up a shipping container that’s bound for Haiti.