FRUITLAND PARK, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis announced a program to bring Hope Florida to school districts at an event at Fruitland Park Elementary School in Lake County Wednesday, Local 10 Orlando news partner WKMG reports.
Hope Florida is a program created by the DeSantis’ that is meant to connect people who need help with nongovernment resources such as faith-based groups, businesses, and charities, using trained state employees as “navigators.”
Recommended Videos
The program originally started in the Department of Children and Families, but has since expanded to other state agencies.
DeSantis said Education Commissioner Manny Diaz was using Hope Florida navigators to help connect more than 450 families to resources for children with learning disabilities since last October.
He also teased utilizing Hope Florida more in childcare spaces in the “coming days and weeks.”
Then DeSantis announced that the Department of Education was working on a pilot program that identifies and trains Hope Florida liaisons at schools in select school districts.
“Orange County was the first school district, to identify and train a liaison,” DeSantis said. “Lake County, which is why we’re here today, is now the second district that is going to identify and train a liaison in every school. So thank you, Lake County, for stepping up and helping to spearhead this great expansion.”
“You can have the best programs, but if you don’t know that they’re there, then what good are they?” said first lady Casey DeSantis. “I’ve talked to a lot of moms, moms of children who have unique abilities. And when they find out that their child has a unique ability, they don’t know where to turn. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know who to call. And so what we’re trying to do is simplify the process.”
The announcement comes at a time of controversy for the DeSantis’ and Hope Florida.
Florida House lawmakers conducted a probe earlier this year of Hope Florida Foundation, the charitable nonprofit that is supposed to help Hope Florida navigators and workers.
Republican leaders in the Florida House accuse now-Florida State Attorney James Uthmeier, who was until recently Gov. DeSantis’ chief of staff, of using $10 million that was donated to the foundation to fund political attack campaigns against the 2024 constitutional amendment on recreational marijuana.
The money had been donated as part of a legal settlement in a Medicaid overbilling lawsuit.
Last week, the lead investigator, State Rep. Alex Andrade, ended the probe, but said he was convinced that Uthmeier and an attorney conspired as part of a ploy to misuse the $10 million.
“I’ll leave the rest of the investigation up to the FBI and Department of Justice,” Andrade said.
DeSantis called the probe a smear and accused the lawmakers of attacking the first lady, who may run for governor in 2026.
House Speaker Daniel Perez, also a Republican, has said that oversight of Hope Florida was not over and “all options are still on the table.”