- The Hope Florida Foundation board meeting, tied to a DeSantis initiative, was disrupted by trolls posting inappropriate content.
- The disruptions plagued the Zoom meeting, forcing several pauses and ultimately its termination.
- The disruption occurred amidst controversy surrounding a $10 million payment to the foundation.
A board meeting of the Hope Florida Foundation, connected to a key initiative of Gov. Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis, was interrupted April 17 after online trolls hijacked the open Zoom call with pornographic images, Nazi symbols and racist slurs.
The administrators of the call did not know how to prevent audience members from sharing their screens, and the meeting paused several times, with “technical difficulties – please stand by,” as seen on The Florida Channel.
At one point, a board officer spelled out one of the racist epithets while speaking to others who were trying to fix the Zoom settings.
The meeting officially ended at 10:41 a.m., according to The Florida Channel’s live stream schedule. An attempt to access it through a direct Zoom link was unsuccessful, with a message popping up, “Host has another meeting in progress.”
Hope Florida posted the following statement after the meeting: “We apologize for the earlier disruption to the public meeting. The Department of Children and Families is actively working to address the incident. Please monitor this website for information on when the meeting, which is currently in recess, will reconvene and for an updated link.”
Although it appears to be unrelated, the Hope Florida meeting takeover came the day after a nationwide Zoom outage, when thousands of online meetings were canceled, including the Florida A&M University Board of Trustees meeting.
What is Hope Florida?
Hope Florida, the DeSantises’ signature program intended as a conservative alternative to traditional welfare programs, has been under fire after a ‘follow the money’ probe of a $10 million payment made to the foundation.
The payment was made in October by Centene, a Medicaid managed care insurer, as part of a settlement with the Agency for Health Care Administration.
The entire settlement was for $67 million, but $10 million was sent as a “donation” to the Hope Florida Foundation, which raises money for DeSantis’ Hope Florida initiative, conceived as a conservative alternative to welfare by redirecting people to help from private charities and other nonprofits.
The foundation then sent that money in two $5 million grants to two nonprofits. Those groups then donated more than $8 million to Keep Florida Clean, a political committee chaired by James Uthmeier, who was DeSantis’ chief of staff at the time. DeSantis appointed him Florida’s attorney general in February.
DeSantis and state officials have defended the settlement payment, asserting the money wasn’t technically state funds because it went directly to the foundation.
On April 16, news surfaced that the executive director of Hope Florida was stepping down. The News Service of Florida reported that Erik Dellenback, who also serves as Gov. DeSantis’ “liaison for faith and community,” was leaving to pursue a post as CEO of Florida Family Voice, a Christian nonprofit.
The meeting Thursday was an attempt by the foundation to be transparent amid the controversy.
A meeting summary said, “The board of directors will discuss the state of the organization, its corporate governance, its finances, public records and public meeting laws, all to ensure that the organization is furthering its mission and the Department of Children and Families’ priorities.”
This is a developing news story. Check back later for more.
Previously published material was used in this story. Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at
