Businessman Pays Overdue Bills Dozens Again
Businessman Pays Overdue Utility Bills for Dozens of Floridians, Over again
Mike Esmond knew what information technology was like to exist bankrupt and get his estrus cut off in a savage winter. So, for the second yr in a row, he paid residents' overdue utility bills in Gulf Breeze, Fla.
Mike Esmond walked into City Hall in Gulf Breeze, Fla., in Nov 2019 and cut a check for $4,300 to pay for 36 local residents whose gas and water bills were overdue and at risk of existence disconnected.
This month, Mr. Esmond, 74, who owns a pool and spa structure company in Gulf Breeze, wrote another check for $seven,600 to pay off the overdue balances for 114 residents to ensure they could rut their homes through the holidays.
It appears that his generosity — born of his own feel with hardship — may have inspired others to exercise the same, all for a customs that has been hit peculiarly hard past twin disasters: Hurricane Sally, which in September damaged the span that connects Gulf Breeze to Pensacola and withal remains closed for repairs; and the coronavirus pandemic, which has strained the local economy and shuttered many area businesses.
"When he first came in, I thought this was incredibly generous," said Joanne Oliver, the utility billing supervisor for Gulf Breeze, which has about vii,000 residents. "I've been in customer service more than twenty years, and this had never happened."
Ms. Oliver said that in September, after the hurricane struck, a local visitor reached out to her offering similar help. That calendar month, the company paid $42,000 to settle overdue balances for 252 Gulf Breeze residents. And Ms. Oliver said a local couple merely volunteered $500 to settle another fourteen overdue accounts.
In a telephone interview on Friday, Mr. Esmond said he was inspired to donate money last year later he opened his own utility pecker and saw the due date: Dec. 26. His retentivity flashed back to the wintertime of 1983, when he was broke and his own gas and water service was close off over the holidays.
"I had 3 immature girls at home at the time, and the temperature got down to 6 degrees, with ice and frost on the inside of the business firm," said Mr. Esmond, speaking from his truck at a construction site. "I've lived that where I didn't have a dollar in my pocket to care for my family, and so I know what it's similar to really exist broke and in need."
"I wanted to see if I could assist people that might be experiencing the same thing — where they couldn't pay their bills and their utilities were going to exist shut off around Christmas time."
Mr. Esmond said he felt that this year could be even tougher for families in Gulf Breeze, particularly considering of the pandemic, but also because he had seen so many homes withal waiting to have their roofs repaired from Hurricane Emerge.
The past twelvemonth was good for Mr. Esmond'south business, as he gained new clients who decided to take the coin that they had saved for vacations and spend it instead on edifice new pond pools at their homes.
He began working in puddle construction in Doylestown, Pa., in 1968, shortly afterwards returning from a tour in Vietnam. Mr. Esmond volunteered for the Army in 1966, and spent a year ferrying troops and supplies from a base in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, every bit the coxswain of a 75-foot landing craft.
Mr. Esmond moved to the Florida Panhandle in 1977, where he said people wanted to build pools year-round. His fiscal fortunes improved after he started his ain company in 2010, and he said he now builds about 50 swimming pools a year.
"When people ask me what kind of year I had, I'm almost ashamed to tell them because it was such a practiced year when so many other people are suffering," Mr. Esmond said. "And that'due south why I want to share my prosperity with those who are less fortunate."
Ms. Oliver said on Friday that the city was mailing cards to the 114 families helped by Mr. Esmond, notifying them that their overdue balances had been taken care of. Whether she will exist sending the aforementioned kinds of cards once again side by side year is largely dependent on how Gulf Breeze manages to bounce back economically, but Mr. Esmond said he would be there to help families who needed it in 2021.
"We'll only accept to run into how things go," Mr. Esmond said. "I'thou 74 years onetime and I don't fifty-fifty know if I'grand even going to exist here side by side year, but I can guarantee you ane thing: If I am, I'll do something to aid people out."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/us/vietnam-veteran-utility-bills.html
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