By Brianna Bradley – FromPhoenix Business Journal

Matt Widdows, CEO of HomeSmart International, joined relief efforts in multiple Caribbean islands from Sept. 12 to Sept. 17 by flying medical supplies, food, water and power generators to and from the Caribbean islands hit by the preliminary storms of Hurricane Irma.

“I saw how devastating Irma was going to be and saw that they were going to need help,” Widdows said.

Widdows said flying became very convenient for him as he typically flies from city to city for business endeavors. He said typically, as a CEO of HomeSmart International, his job varies from day to day while he primarily works on contract work, agreements and taxes. Widdows said he typically provides direction and vision for the company with new ideas, new implementations and new technologies.

“We’ve got a lot of markets that we’re in across the country,” Widdows said. “Flying ended up being a really convenient thing for me. It’s something i love to do.”

Widdows said flying for charity work is even better than the business trips. He flies for the eastern division of Angel Flight, which provides free air transportation for passengers in need of medical treatment far from home and for other community service missions.

He said his plane is the perfect size for relief trips and charity work and since he loves to fly it’s a win-win for him.

Widdows said he flew out from Ft. Lauderdale and his first trip was to the Dominican Republic where he relocated relief workers from Rubicon Technology Inc. to Turks and Caicos.

“From there we went to San Juan,” Widdows said. “We were running missions back from St. Thomas and St. Marten.”

Widdows said he worked with the eastern division of Angel Flight to transport up to 2,000 pounds of water, food and supplies at a time.

He said they transported power generators and medical supplies primarily to St. Thomas and St. Marten.

Since Widdows and his Angel Flight eastern division team visited the Caribbean islands four days prior to the main hit from Hurricane Irma, the small islands of St. Thomas and St. Marten were in worse condition than the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Widdows said they were even able to deliver coolers filled with soda from San Juan to relief workers in St. Marten upon request — after delivering large amounts of water as well.

He said many people were evacuating from St. Thomas and St. Marten to either San Juan or Ft. Lauderdale at the time.

“We ended up taking nine or 10 (people) and three dogs to Ft. Lauderdale,” Widdows said. “We did more aid and not a ton of people.”

He said the greater good was making quick runs back to San Juan from the smaller Caribbean Islands because it was not as much of a long haul. There were four families in total that were transported to either San Juan or Ft. Lauderdale.

“I was getting tons and tons of text messages,” Widdows said. “It was pretty hectic for sure but it was a great experience.”

Widdows said it was sad to see the devastation in St. Marten and St. Thomas specifically. He said Turks and Caicos didn’t seem too bad at first but St. Marten was hit the hardest where he frequently saw refugee tents, flocks of military officials and power outages.

“Four days after we were there they got wiped out,” Widdows said. “I’ll definitely be down for doing it again.”

IMAGE: Matt Widdow’s, CEO of HomeSmart International, used his plan to fly relief and rescue missions in the Caribbean in mid-September.

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