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Cool Down St. Louis helps people beat the heat before triple-digit temps

The organization provides assistance free of charge from air conditioners to utility bill help.

ST. LOUIS — Extreme heat with temperatures in the triple digits is coming our way.

Making it very important to check on the most vulnerable people in our neighborhoods.

The most important thing is for people to have some sort of cooling source for most of us that’s an air conditioner but the reality is not everyone has one or can afford it.

It might look like Ralph Jordan is just enjoying his porch on a nice summer day, but what you don’t see is how miserable it is inside his house.

“See out here it's 90 degrees. Well, you go in there and it’s got to be about 100."

Jordan said he’s doing what he can to stay cool.

“Eating this watermelon. You see this watermelon keeping me cool. And you see this big fan sitting right here,” Jordan said.

Jordan says his air conditioner was more than 20 years old and couldn’t be fixed so he had to get rid of it. 

Unfortunately, the weather is only going to make his situation worse.

“Oh, the days are going to get hotter. It's gonna get hotter. Yeah, I've been looking at the news and they said it's going to be 90 today so I ran over there this morning. I usually don't get up there early, but I said, I'm going to get me some cool down,” Jordan said

He’s not just saying he needs to cool down he’s talking about a lifeline organization ready to help.

“At Cool Down St. Louis, it basically does one thing, saves lives,” Founder of Cool Down St. Louis Gentry Trotter said.

Cool Down St. Louis can provide air conditioners to people like Jordan, either their unit has broken down or they don't have one at all.

They’ll even go one step further to help with your bills.

“We will do everything we can to help, but you got to call us first and your utility company and tell us about your inability to pay. We will try to drive down that bill as far as we can,” Trotter said.

The organization partnered with the St. Louis Fire Department to give Jordan a surprise, an air conditioner, the very same day he called.

“We typically do about 30 of these a year. I would like for us to increase that number because there are still people out here who maybe are not aware of the program or just don't have a window unit. So we can come out and do that for free,” St. Louis Fire Department Captain Leon Whitener said.

While the St. Louis Fire Department does about that many per year, the organization as a whole does even more across the region.

Trotter says they've given away more than 18,000 since the organization started.

Whitener says he’s seen what happens when people don’t call Cool Down St. Louis.

“Every year we have someone or maybe a couple of people that succumb to the heat,” Whitener said.

But luckily that won’t be Jordan because now he can actually be in his house and not be miserable. 

“And right away I think I'm going to be blessed for the day. I'm going to stay in the house and eat the watermelon,” Jordan said.

Watch out for signs of heat exhaustion like excessive sweating, nausea, and muscle cramps. Heat stroke can also make you nauseous, give you a throbbing headache and you may even stop sweating. 

Before it gets to that point find a cooling center and call Cool Down St. Louis at (314) 241-7668 to see if you qualify for help.

Cool Down St. Louis helps people in 44 counties in Missouri and Illinois.

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