Cape Coral Facebook group a place for neighbors to help neighbors

Neighbors are helping neighbors in Southwest Florida. It starts with a question: What’s the one thing you need?

So many of us live our lives on a keyboard, whether it’s at work, school or during play. Now, it’s happening so people can help one another.

A Cape Coral Facebook group is asking people to tell them about, “The one thing you need that you cannot afford?” Within days, 1,000 people responded.

“It restores my faith in humanity that there is still more good people out there than there are bad,” Shana English said.

English helped a family with young kids by giving them barstools she didn’t need anymore.

“To that family, it’s something new,” English said. “It’s something they didn’t have to put out money they didn’t have for, and it’s something they can enjoy and actually use.”

April Caster moved to Cape Coral from Wisconsin with her husband, who is searching for work. She asked for help with his job search, and a woman responded to Caster and told her to have her husband follow her on LinkedIn, and she sent him some leads.

“He actually had a really good interview this morning on a Zoom call, so hopefully we’ll hear something this week,” Caster said.

Anyone interested in joining the effort to help others can ask to join the private Facebook group. Some of the things people have asked for include baby clothes, furniture and home repairs.

Caster plans to help another family with car repairs, a specialty of theirs.

“Anything we can do to help, and we’re still on that post like, “Anything that we can do to help,'” Caster said. “If we can do it, we’ll do it for sure.”