The Lights Are On Somewhere—Just Not Where the Answers Are
FPL customers donate millions to Care To Share. Volusia County residents are told help exists. So why is finding the help—or even finding out how much money is available—so damn difficult?
I work.
I pay taxes.
I pay an electric bill.
I buy groceries.
I pay for gas, insurance, housing and everything else that has somehow gotten more expensive while ordinary people's paychecks haven't magically doubled.
And apparently, there's a financial category in Florida that nobody knows what the hell to do with:
Too "rich" for help. Too broke to survive an emergency.
Welcome to the working middle.
The people who aren't asking somebody to support them forever.
We're asking what happens when the car breaks, hours get cut, rent goes up, the electric bill hits at exactly the wrong time, or one unexpected expense knocks over the entire financial Jenga tower.
That's what led me down the rabbit hole of utility assistance in Volusia County.
And eventually to one very simple question:
Where the hell does FPL's Care To Share money go?
Not because I'm alleging someone stole it.
Not because I have evidence anyone misappropriated it.
I don't.
I'm asking because FPL customers donate real money to this program, FPL reports millions of dollars raised statewide, and yet obtaining basic, current, Volusia County-level information about that money is remarkably difficult.
And after more than a year of personally trying to navigate this system, I'm tired of being told help exists somewhere behind a phone number nobody answers.
First, What Is Care To Share?
FPL's Care To Share program exists to provide emergency electric-bill assistance to customers experiencing financial hardship.
This isn't imaginary money.
According to FPL, customers, employees and shareholders contribute to the program.
FPL's publicly available Care To Share information currently reports that in 2024, $4,717,387 was raised and 12,540 families were helped.
Do the math:
$4,717,387 ÷ 12,540 = approximately $376 per family.
FPL says eligible households can receive as much as $750 during a 12-month period, depending on eligibility and circumstances.
So the statewide 2024 arithmetic isn't inherently suspicious.
Approximately $376 per household sounds completely plausible for emergency electric assistance.
Historically, FPL reports approximately $43.87 million raised and approximately 126,925 families assisted since Care To Share began.
That's approximately:
$346 per family over the life of the program.
Again, those numbers are reasonably consistent.
That's not where I have a problem.
My Problem Is What Happens When We Ask About Volusia County.
FPL currently identifies The Salvation Army as its Care To Share partner serving Volusia County.
That's where customers are directed.
So I tried to navigate it.
And tried.
And tried.
This hasn't been a bad afternoon for me.
I've been dealing with this for more than a year.
I've encountered a voicemail box that's full.
I've been unable to find a functional online path that actually gets me through the process.
I called FPL trying to understand where the local Care To Share assistance was and couldn't get the information I was looking for.
Then I contacted 211.
When I described what I was experiencing, I was told that they had been hearing this a lot.
That's my firsthand experience.
It does not prove that money is missing.
But holy hell, does it raise a reasonable question:
If everybody says the help exists, why can't people reach it?
Here's Where It Gets More Interesting
I started looking into how Care To Share money is actually supposed to be handled.
And historically, this wasn't supposed to operate like somebody handed a nonprofit a bag of cash and said, "Good luck."
A publicly available FPL Care To Share agreement with another Florida administering agency describes a fairly serious accountability system.
Under that agreement, the agency was required to maintain records of Care To Share money.
It required a Quarterly Agency Fund Reconciliation Report.
That reconciliation included things like:
Previous ending balance.
Money provided by FPL.
Payments made.
Adjustments.
New ending balance.
Number of customers served.
The agreement also provided for FPL review and auditing of submitted records, including requesting supporting customer documentation and identifying discrepancies or deficiencies.
FPL could also conduct operational reviews.
And here's another important provision:
Under that agreement, Care To Share money couldn't simply be eaten up by the administering agency's salaries, overhead and administrative expenses.
The Care To Share funds were supposed to go toward FPL customer payment assistance.
Now, this agreement involved another Florida administering agency and is older.
I am not claiming it is the current contract governing The Salvation Army in Volusia County in 2026.
That's precisely why I'd like to see the current one.
Because apparently these aren't unreasonable questions.
FPL's own Care To Share system has historically required agencies to answer them.
So Show Volusia County the Reconciliation.
That's it.
That's what I want.
No customer's name.
No address.
No Social Security number.
No private financial information.
Give us numbers.
VOLUSIA COUNTY — FPL CARE TO SHARE
Beginning balance: $____
Care To Share funds received: $____
Amount committed to FPL accounts: $____
Adjustments: $____
Ending balance: $____
Households assisted: ____
Average assistance: $____
Applications received: ____
Applications approved: ____
Applications denied: ____
Applications awaiting funding: ____
Date funds were exhausted, if applicable: ______
Next funding allocation: ______
Last updated: ______
Why the hell would this be controversial?
If the numbers reconcile perfectly, fantastic.
Publish them.
That would answer the question.
And Where Are 2025 and 2026?
This might be one of the strangest things I found.
It's August 2026.
Yet FPL's public-facing Care To Share information is still displaying the program's 2024 annual fundraising and families-helped figures.
2024:
$4,717,387 raised.
12,540 families helped.
Great.
Where's 2025?
And where is 2026 year-to-date?
During 2025 proceedings before the Florida Public Service Commission, FPL provided plenty of information about Care To Share.
FPL said it expected approximately $15 million in Care To Share payment assistance from 2022 through the end of 2025.
That is a cumulative four-year figure—not $15 million in 2025 alone.
FPL has also testified that Care To Share historically averaged approximately $2.4 million annually over the preceding ten years.
So clearly the company tracks this program.
Then why is a customer looking at 2024 numbers in August 2026?
Maybe there's a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Publish it.
Now Let's Talk About Working People
This may be the most important thing I discovered.
Care To Share wasn't designed exclusively for households living at the very bottom of the federal poverty scale.
FPL told Florida regulators that it changed Care To Share eligibility in 2021 because there was another group falling through the cracks.
They're called ALICE households.
Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed.
Read that last word again:
EMPLOYED.
Working people.
FPL explained that some customers were experiencing financial hardship while earning too much to qualify for federal assistance programs such as LIHEAP.
Sound familiar?
Because that's exactly the financial purgatory a hell of a lot of working Floridians are living in.
Too much income for assistance.
Not enough income to actually live.
And FPL told regulators that more than $235,000 in Care To Share assistance during 2024 went to customers who didn't qualify for federal assistance and wouldn't have qualified under Care To Share's previous criteria.
So when a working Volusia County resident says:
"I make too much to qualify for everything but I cannot afford this electric bill,"
that person isn't abusing the purpose of Care To Share.
They're one of the populations the program was expanded to reach.
Let's Do Some Volusia County Math
Since I couldn't find a simple public Volusia County Care To Share ledger, let's create a benchmark.
Previously reported FPL figures put its Volusia County customer-account presence at approximately 190,000 accounts.
FPL now serves more than 6 million customer accounts statewide.
That puts Volusia at roughly:
3.2% of FPL's statewide customer base.
Now—and this distinction is extremely important—I'm not saying Volusia receives exactly 3.2% of Care To Share money.
We don't have evidence that FPL allocates Care To Share strictly according to customer population.
This is simply a proportional benchmark.
If Volusia received approximately 3.17% of the $4,717,387 raised statewide in 2024, that would be around:
$149,000
Using the actual statewide 2024 Care To Share average of approximately $376 per assisted household, $149,000 could theoretically represent assistance for roughly:
396 households.
Or look at it another way.
A typical FPL residential customer using 1,000 kWh was paying somewhere in the neighborhood of the mid-$130s per month around the end of 2025/beginning of 2026.
At approximately $136 per bill, $149,000 represents roughly:
1,095 average monthly electric bills.
Again:
I am NOT claiming Salvation Army received $149,000.
I'm asking what the actual number was.
We shouldn't have to reverse-engineer hypothetical allocations from statewide statistics.
Someone already knows the real number.
So Give Us the Real Number.
How much Care To Share money was allocated to Volusia County in 2025?
How much was actually credited to customers?
How many households received assistance?
What was the average benefit?
What was left on December 31?
Was anything carried into 2026?
How much Care To Share funding has Volusia received between January 1 and August 26, 2026?
How many households have been helped?
What's the current balance?
If the money is gone:
When did it run out?
If applications aren't being accepted:
Say that.
If additional funding is coming:
When?
And if FPL's administering agency is already required to track this information internally:
Why can't the people donating the money—and the people desperately trying to access it—see the basic numbers?
Meanwhile, Florida Is Suddenly Very Interested in Accountability
There's another reason the timing of this matters.
On August 24, 2026, Florida announced new restrictions governing how Temporary Cash Assistance can be spent.
The state specifically targeted purchases including things like tattoos, tanning, spa services, entertainment, tobacco and nicotine products, drugs and intoxicants, among other restricted purchases.
The message from the state was basically:
Public assistance should pay for necessities.
Keeping the lights on was specifically part of the conversation.
Fine.
I actually have a question.
Can working taxpayers get the same enthusiasm for accountability on the other end?
If Florida wants accountability from the person receiving assistance, I'm good with accountability.
But let's have it all the way around.
Accountability for recipients.
Accountability for agencies.
Accountability for administrators.
Accountability for corporations collecting customer donations.
And transparency for the people trying to access the money.
Maybe We Need to "Meth Around" to Get Help
Because sometimes that's what this system feels like.
Do we need to completely fall apart first?
Lose the job?
Get evicted?
Have the electricity disconnected?
Destroy our credit?
Become homeless?
Do working people need to "meth around" before somebody decides we've finally struggled enough to qualify for help?
Obviously not.
And people struggling with addiction deserve help too.
This isn't about taking food or assistance away from another struggling human being.
Stop making poor people fight other poor people.
The real problem is the gigantic hole between "doing okay" and "federally poor."
That's where millions of working Americans live.
And FPL itself apparently recognized it when it expanded Care To Share to ALICE households.
We Aren't Asking for a Handout.
We're asking why assistance designed partly for working people who fall through traditional eligibility cracks can be so damn difficult to access.
We're asking why someone facing an electric shutoff encounters a full voicemail box.
We're asking why a person can call FPL and still struggle to determine what's happening with the assistance available in their own county.
We're asking why 211 would tell a caller they're hearing similar complaints.
We're asking why it's August 2026 and FPL's public Care To Share page is still showing 2024 annual results.
And we're asking the simplest question of all:
Why Isn't Someone at FPL Actually Handling This?
Here's something else I cannot understand.
Call FPL.
The automated phone system literally gives customers an option for people who need assistance paying their electric bill.
Perfect.
That's exactly why I'm calling.
So you select it.
You wait on hold.
You finally reach somebody.
And where does the road lead?
Call The Salvation Army.
Now you're starting over.
Except the agency you're being directed to has its own enormous mission to handle—homelessness, disaster response, food assistance, emergency services and countless other community needs.
And in my experience trying to access Care To Share assistance in Volusia County, getting through hasn't simply been difficult. It has been effectively impossible. I've encountered a full voicemail box and no workable online alternative that actually allows me to complete the process.
So I have a ridiculously simple question:
Why doesn't FPL have a Care To Share team?
Seriously.
FPL already knows:
My account number.
My balance.
My payment history.
Whether I'm past due.
Whether I have a disconnect notice.
My household's electricity usage.
And FPL operates the program its customers are donating money to.
Why can't FPL employ a small team of people whose job is specifically to begin the Care To Share process?
Not automatically approve everybody.
Not hand out money without verification.
Process applications.
Let customers upload income documentation.
Verify basic eligibility.
Flag missing documents.
Perform an initial review.
Approve straightforward cases or forward qualified applications for final authorization.
Deny applications that don't meet established criteria—and tell the customer why.
Most importantly:
Give somebody an answer.
This Could Even Create Jobs for People Who Need Them
And if FPL needs people to do that work, here's an idea.
Hire them.
These don't all need to be people sitting in some giant office building.
Create legitimate remote Care To Share case-processing positions.
Hire veterans.
Hire disabled veterans.
Hire people with disabilities who can work remotely.
Hire retirees who want part-time work.
Hire parents who need flexible employment.
Hire qualified people right here in the communities Care To Share serves.
Train them on eligibility requirements, documentation, privacy and FPL's systems.
Give each case a tracking number.
Give applicants a portal:
APPLICATION RECEIVED
DOCUMENTS NEEDED
UNDER REVIEW
APPROVED — $___ CREDIT PENDING
DENIED — REASON: ______
APPEAL/RECONSIDERATION
Suddenly, instead of calling three organizations and leaving messages in full voicemail boxes, a customer could actually see what the hell is happening.
That's not revolutionary technology.
That's basic customer service in 2026.
Stop Making People Chase the Money
There's something fundamentally backwards about the current experience.
A person tells FPL:
"I cannot afford my FPL bill."
FPL essentially says:
"Here's another organization to call."
The customer calls.
Nobody answers.
So they call 211.
211 sends them somewhere else.
Another application.
Another eligibility screen.
Another phone number.
Another voicemail.
Another website.
Meanwhile, the original FPL bill hasn't stopped existing.
The due date hasn't stopped moving.
The disconnect notice hasn't stopped counting down.
And the person experiencing the emergency has now been given a second unpaid job:
Professional Assistance Program Navigator.
Why?
FPL already has the customer on the phone.
You're already authenticated.
You're already looking at the account.
Start the damn application.
Even if federal rules, contractual requirements or nonprofit partnerships require another organization to make the final eligibility determination, FPL could still ask a much more important operational question:
How much of this process can we legally and responsibly complete before handing the customer somewhere else?
And if current rules prevent that?
Tell the public which rule prevents it.
Then maybe that's the rule we need to change.
And Who Is Watching the Door?
There's another problem with outsourcing the customer-facing portion of an emergency program.
Somebody needs to notice when the door stops opening.
If FPL sends hundreds of struggling customers to an administering agency, who at FPL is checking:
Are calls being answered?
Is voicemail accepting messages?
Are applications actually being processed?
What's the average response time?
How many people were referred by FPL?
How many successfully reached the agency?
How many completed an application?
How many were approved?
How many were denied?
How many simply disappeared somewhere between "Call The Salvation Army" and actually receiving assistance?
That last number matters.
Because a referral is not assistance.
Giving somebody a phone number isn't helping them if nobody answers the phone.
A website link isn't access if there's no functional application behind it.
And an assistance program isn't succeeding simply because money eventually reaches somebody.
The question is whether the system is accessible to the people it was created to serve.
Put One Person in Charge of the Damn Thing
Every county should have identifiable accountability for Care To Share.
Not necessarily somebody whose personal information is plastered all over the internet.
But a position.
Volusia County Care To Share Program Coordinator.
And that office should be responsible for knowing, every single day:
How much funding is available.
How many applications are waiting.
How long applicants have been waiting.
Whether the phones work.
Whether the online application works.
Whether the administering agency is meeting response-time requirements.
And whether customers FPL refers for help are actually receiving a response.
Because right now, from the customer's perspective, everybody can point somewhere else.
FPL points to The Salvation Army.
An unanswered phone points you toward 211.
211 points toward available resources.
And the struggling customer keeps moving in circles while the electric bill sits right where it started.
Somebody has to own the outcome.
FPL doesn't necessarily have to personally approve every Care To Share application.
The Salvation Army doesn't have to solve every financial crisis in Volusia County.
211 can't magically manufacture funding.
But somebody needs to be responsible for making sure that when FPL tells a struggling customer:
"Help is available."
there is actually a human being—or at minimum a functioning application system—waiting on the other end.
Because "call this number" isn't assistance.
A referral isn't assistance.
Sitting on hold isn't assistance.
A full voicemail box sure as hell isn't assistance.
And people facing disconnection don't need another phone number.
They need somebody to answer.
Show us the numbers.
Show us Volusia County's 2025 Care To Share reconciliation.
Show us 2026 year-to-date.
Show us how much came in.
Show us how much went onto customer accounts.
Show us how many households were helped.
Show us what's left.
And if there's nothing left?
Show us that too.
Maybe every dollar is exactly where it's supposed to be.
I genuinely hope it is.
But transparency shouldn't require trust.
Transparency is how you earn it.
Until then, working Volusia County families are going to keep asking the question nobody seems able to answer:
If Care To Share is there to keep our lights on, why the hell is finding the help happening in the dark?
Don't Tell Us How Many People You Helped. Show the Receipts.
There's one number I'm no longer particularly impressed by:
"Families helped."
An organization can put almost any aggregate number into an annual report.
"We helped 300 households."
"We assisted 500 families."
"We served 1,000 people."
Cool.
Show the transactions.
I'm not asking FPL or The Salvation Army to publish anybody's name.
I'm not asking for addresses.
I'm not asking for Social Security numbers.
And I'm certainly not asking them to expose the financial information of struggling families.
Redact it.
But if Care To Share dollars were actually applied to FPL customer accounts in Volusia County, there should be a transaction trail.
Show us something like this:
Date | Anonymous Account ID | Care To Share Credit | Posted to FPL | Transaction/Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
01/14/2026 | XXXXX-4821 | $325.00 | Yes | CTS-XXXXX |
01/27/2026 | XXXXX-9174 | $500.00 | Yes | CTS-XXXXX |
02/03/2026 | XXXXX-2268 | $175.00 | Yes | CTS-XXXXX |
Then give us the reconciliation:
Beginning Care To Share balance: $_____
+ FPL funds received: $_____
+ Additional Care To Share allocations: $_____
− Verified customer credits: $_____
± Adjustments: $_____
= Ending balance: $_____
And attach the anonymized transactions supporting the number.
That's accountability.
Because "We Helped 400 Families" Isn't the Same as Showing $150,000 Was Distributed
Suppose an organization reports:
400 Volusia County households assisted.
Okay.
Were they given $50 each?
$200?
$500?
Were some applications counted as "assisted" because someone provided a referral?
Was a household counted when an application was processed?
Or does "assisted" specifically mean Care To Share money was credited to that customer's FPL account?
Those are completely different things.
So define it.
If you report a household as "helped by Care To Share," tell us what qualifies that household to be included in the number.
Then show:
Date assistance was authorized.
Dollar amount authorized.
Date the credit actually posted to the FPL account.
Anonymous customer/account identifier.
Funding source: FPL Care To Share.
No personally identifiable information is necessary.
And FPL Should Be Able to Verify the Other Side
This is where having FPL involved makes the accounting even stronger.
If an administering agency says:
"We distributed $87,425 in Care To Share assistance to 231 Volusia County FPL accounts during this quarter."
There should be another side to that transaction.
FPL.
FPL should be capable of determining whether those credits actually appeared on customer accounts.
So reconcile the two systems.
Agency records:
$87,425 distributed.
FPL records:
$87,425 credited.
Match?
Great.
Publish the reconciliation.
Don't match?
Explain why.
That's how financial controls work.
Give Us 2025 and 2026
And this is exactly what I want to see for Volusia County.
Not another statewide press release.
Not another inspirational story.
Not another:
"Thousands of families were helped."
Give us the transaction-level, privacy-protected Care To Share accounting for:
January 1 – December 31, 2025
and
January 1 – August 26, 2026.
For every Care To Share payment credited to a Volusia County customer's FPL account, provide the:
posting date, amount, anonymized account identifier and transaction/reference identifier.
Then provide the total Care To Share funding allocated to Volusia County during the same periods.
Now we can do something remarkably simple:
ADD IT UP.
If Volusia received $100,000 and anonymized verified credits total $100,000?
Beautiful.
Question answered.
If $100,000 came in and $62,000 was distributed?
Fine.
Show the remaining $38,000 balance.
If some was returned or reallocated?
Show that transaction.
If funding carried into the next quarter?
Show the carry-forward.
If additional funding came in?
Show the deposit.
This doesn't require anyone to accuse anybody of stealing a damn thing.
It's called reconciliation.
And if Care To Share is operating exactly as intended, this level of transparency doesn't hurt the program.
It protects it.
Because the answer to public skepticism shouldn't be:
"Trust us. We helped a lot of people."
The answer should be:
"Here are the numbers. Here are the anonymized transactions. They reconcile to the penny."
That's how you shut down questions about where donated money went.
Not with another phone number.
Not with a full voicemail box.
And not with a two-year-old statewide statistic.
Show the receipts.
Step: "Go around your ass to get to your elbow"
The Technology Clearly Isn't Impossible
FPL already demonstrates with another assistance initiative that electronic coordination with The Salvation Army can happen.
Its Saving Steps program explains that customers can complete part of the process online, have income verified through The Salvation Army, and then have eligibility communicated back to FPL before a credit is applied.
You can see that process yourself:
FPL Saving Steps — How the Assistance Process Works
I'm not saying Saving Steps is Care To Share.
It isn't.
I'm saying the existence of that process proves something important:
FPL and The Salvation Army are capable of electronically coordinating an assistance application and an FPL account credit.
So why can't emergency Care To Share applicants have a similarly trackable process?
FPL Financial Assistance by County — Volusia County
Scroll to Volusia County. FPL currently identifies The Salvation Army as its Care To Share provider and lists Daytona Beach, DeLand and New Smyrna Beach contact numbers.
Volusia County — The Salvation Army Social Service Programs
An older Volusia County-hosted document confirming the local FPL Care To Share/Salvation Army partnership. It is included to document the history of the relationship, not to represent current 2026 eligibility rules.
FPL — Bill Payment Help
FPL's current assistance page explaining that community partners help customers apply for financial assistance.
FPL — Saving Steps
A separate FPL assistance initiative showing an existing electronic process in which The Salvation Army verifies income and FPL subsequently applies an eligible bill credit. Saving Steps is not Care To Share; it is included as an example of an existing FPL/Salvation Army assistance workflow.
Have you tried to access FPL Care To Share in Volusia County?
If you've applied for Care To Share assistance during 2025 or 2026, I'd like to hear what happened—whether you received assistance, were denied, couldn't reach anyone, or were referred elsewhere. Please don't send account numbers, Social Security numbers or other private information.
Editor's note: Dollar estimates concerning a hypothetical Volusia County share are illustrative calculations based on publicly reported statewide figures and estimated FPL customer counts. They are not claims about the amount actually allocated to The Salvation Army or Volusia County. Personal experiences involving calls to FPL, 211 and local assistance providers are the author's account and should not be interpreted as independent findings of financial misconduct.