TALLAHASSEE – The Hope Florida Foundation paid a Lakeland physical therapy assistant $588 in March. Days later, a social media video popped up of the woman praising how the organization tied to First Lady Casey DeSantis helped her out of poverty.

“I had no high school diploma,” said Ginger Faulk, a 35-year-old mother of two, describing her circumstances when she contacted Hope Florida in 2021. “I couldn’t pay the rent or put food on the table, until I met my Hope Navigator.”

Hope Florida gave her the resources to get an education, Faulk said in the video, adding that she graduated from college with honors “as a medical practitioner.”

The curious payment to Faulk — disclosed among other foundation expenditures in response to a public records request from the Orlando Sentinel — adds to the swirl of questions surrounding the state’s Hope Florida program and the Hope Florida Foundation, its associated non-profit. DeSantis administration officials have claimed the program has helped 30,000 people off welfare but have provided scant details about who and how.

An earlier report by the Sentinel about the experience of another Hope Florida client , touted in an online magazine, found the claims did not match what the woman said actually happened, overstating the help she was given.

Reached by phone, Faulk declined to comment for this story. The Hope Florida Foundation and Department of Children and Families, which oversees the foundation, did not respond to questions about the money sent to Faulk either.

Faulk’s video was released just as Gov. Ron DeSantis was pushing the Legislature to make Hope Florida an official part of the state government, instead of a loosely affiliated program across more than a dozen different state agencies without a budget of its own.

Within weeks, that effort sparked a legislative inquiry into the program. The inquiry, led by a House committee led by Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, soon prompted controversy when it was revealed that $10 million from a $67 million Medicaid settlement meant to pay back Florida for prescription drug overpayments instead landed in the coffers of the Hope Florida Foundation.

That money was then quickly redistributed to two nonprofits that in turn gave millions to a DeSantis-backed political committee set up to defeat Amendment 3, the ballot measure that would have made recreational pot legal.

The March payment was the second time in two years Faulk received money from the Hope Florida Foundation. She also was given $392 in May 2024. And she appeared to be on the administration’s radar.

DeSantis mentioned her in his state-of-the-state speech at the opening of the 60-day legislative session in March, using her story to pitch his Hope Florida legislation, which would ultimately be rejected by lawmakers. And last year the DeSantises honored Faulk as a Florida Hero at the governor’s mansion.

The Florida Heroes brochure said she was a hero for using Hope Florida to get short-term rental and utility assistance from a local charity so she could focus on her education and career goals, pass her GED and enroll in a CareerSource healthcare program.

Without knowing why the foundation paid her, Faulk’s video casts some doubt over her motive for providing a testimonial, said Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University.

“There is nothing wrong with a recipient expressing gratitude,” Jarvis said. “But if she was paid, as a paid spokesperson, that should be disclosed.”

The payments to Faulk are among the dozens of unexplained payments listed in the foundation’s $550,000 worth of expenditures made since its inception in August of 2023. The list of payments provided to the Sentinel did not include any details about the purpose of the spending.

The largest single payment was $100,000 to Florida Emergency Management Assistance Inc., also known as the Florida Disaster Foundation, a direct support organization for the Division of Emergency Management created in 2023.

Two Panhandle resorts owned by the same company received the next largest amount of money — $55,500 to the St. Joe Resort and $40,000 to Camp Creek Inn.

The largest collective expense was the distribution of $1,000 bonuses to each of the 156 state workers who had been reassigned as Hope Navigators. Another half dozen state employees received bonuses of $2,500 each. Mallory McManus, the former deputy chief of staff at DCF, received $7,456.

The Hope Florida Foundation and DCF did not respond to questions about these expenditures, either.

“Those expenditures need more clarity and detail,” Jarvis said.

The larger sums raise the most questions, including what services those companies provided to receive those funds and how they spent it, Jarvis said.

Also, he asked, what is the foundation doing with the remaining $1.5 million? “What are the plans for that?”

Prior to receiving its now controversial $10 million donation from the Medicaid provider, the foundation had only raised $2 million and paid out the $550,000, according to a spreadsheet the Orlando Sentinel received. The records only identify the amount paid, the date and the recipient. Requests for supporting documentation that might explain the purpose of the donations are still pending.