Danny Izzi / www.AvantiLimoRide.com

A photo taken by Avanti Limousines and Airport Transportation owner Danny Izzi at the scene of the accident in Davie, Fla.

Cummerbunds and courage rounded out prom night for a group of 20 Florida teenagers who sprang from their limo to help the victims of an automobile accident on Saturday.

The high school seniors were gussied up to dance the night away in Fort Lauderdale when a van carrying a family of seven overturned in front of them on Interstate 595. A dramatic video captured the students from Western High School in Davie, Fla., as they helped pull five adults and two children from the vehicle.

The driver of the van, a Honda Odyssey, was traveling eastbound on I-595 when traffic slowed, said Sgt. Mark Wysocky of Florida Highway Patrol. The driver apparently veered to the left, bouncing off the divider and turning the van on its side.

The students were in their Cadillac Escalade limo directly behind the van when it flipped just before 6:45 p.m., Danny Izzi, president of Avanti Limousines and Airport Transportation, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

“I almost hit them,” Izzi, who was at the wheel of the limo, told the paper. “I had to slam on my brakes, but with 20 kids in there it’s really [difficult] to put the brakes on.”

Prom-goer Peter Kim told NBC Miami that he grabbed a young boy from the overturned van and helped calm the mother.

“We laid her down, and we tried to calm her down. She was just panicking, she was in shock,” Kim said. “She was screaming out, ‘Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?’”

“I was just hoping that the people were OK,” said fellow senior Frank Tucker.

The students still made it to prom after what Tucker described as a “silent” ride.

“It felt great that we got to help someone out and that we didn’t just roll on by,” Kim told NBC Miami. “I’m happy that I had my peers that actually helped out instead of just sitting there and doing nothing.”

The professionals agreed.

“It was really amazing, because nowadays when people are so willing not to get involved they were ready to get involved,” Sgt. Wysocky said. “All the students and the limo driver should be commended for stopping.”

There were no serious injuries, Wysocky said, though a 2-year-old child was not secured by a seat belt at the time of the accident.

MIAMI -- Bishop Ivory Wilson on Sunday gazed on the shattered window of a building that serves as a church on the weekend and as a day care during the week.

There is the charred cafeteria where children would eat their snacks. A roof is now blackened with soot. It's just feet away from where students learn and play at the day care center.

"We worked hard to make this,” Wilson said. “The kids love us, the parents love us and we love them.”

Director Sandra Wilson said: “This just broke my heart, I couldn't stop crying -- couldn't stop crying.” 

They say they believe the fire was deliberately set, given the vandalism spray-painted on the walls: three large red swastikas. 

The owners of Little Leapers Childcare center in Fort Lauderdale say it’s a hate crime. In the last few weeks, employees say they also have been on the receiving end of a verbal threat. 

Three weeks before the fire, an anonymous someone phoned “and threatened us,” said Joyce Bryant, lead schoolteacher. The caller told staff to pack their bags and get out, Bryant said.

More news from NBCMiami.com

When that call came in, the bishop and his wife contacted police. Sunday, instead of singing and praising in the auditorium, they're tallying up items that were stolen: Cameras, music equipment and flat-screen TVs used to live-stream sermons.

"Here we've got parents that won't know where to take their kids tomorrow morning," Wilson said.

They've been present in the community now for more than four years. They can’t understand why they’ve been attacked.

"We think everyone should be able to run their own business without anyone trying to run them out," Bryant said.

The bishop said vacating the building is the last thing they'll do, unwilling to let hatred win.

"We're not going to run,” he said. “Whatever game they're playing doesn't frighten me.”

Homeless people in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., now have an alternative to shelters: A one-way bus ticket out of the city, thanks to a $25,000 program approved by city commissioners on Tuesday.

To qualify, participants must prove they have family in their destination city who is willing to let them move in. Advocates of the Homeless Reunification Program - which is financed not by taxpayers but by the Florida Law Enforcement Trust Fund, which is composed of money confiscated from criminals - told Florida's Sun-Sentinel this gives people living on the streets a second chance they wouldn't be getting otherwise.

"We're not pushing them out," Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler said. "If somebody has a network of support, a group of family and friends that will provide for them back home, that's probably a good place for them to be."

Some of those in shelters moved to Fort Lauderdale thinking they would find a job and then ran out of money before getting hired, Marilyn Munoz, executive director of nearby Palm Beach County’s Homeless Coalition, told msnbc.com. This program specifically targets people like them, she said.

 “This is definitely not a way to get people who are homeless out of Palm Beach County; this is just a way to get people back home,” she said. “If they have relatives, this helps them out. That all it is: It’s help. It’s very expensive to purchase a bus ticket.”

For Fort Lauderdale, though, the expense a bus ticket vs. putting someone up in a shelter - a bus ticket to California could cost as little as $245 from Florida, according to The Sun-Sentinel - is much more cost-effective. The city, in Broward County, is following in Palm Beach County's footsteps.

Claudia Tuck, Palm Beach County division director for human and veteran services, told msnbc.com the Homeless Reunification Program is just one component of the county's 10-year plan to end homelessness.

"It's very specific to helping somebody who really doesn't want to be here," she said. "They've come here, things didn't work out, and they have a support system somewhere else but don't have means to get there and that person doesn't have the means to get them there either."

The agency will not approve a bus ticket for a homeless person until a relative in the destination city is reached, Tuck said.

"This isn’t a practice of putting someone on a bus at all," she said.

 It’s also up to the people seeking homes, said Dorla Leslie, CEO of Palm Beach County’s Center for Family Services.

“Our first thing is to try to find them shelter locally if that is at all possible, and if that is what they want, when they come in to see us,” Leslie told msnbc.com. “We’re not going to say to them, ‘Oh, we’re going to send you on a bus.’”

If the individual or family wants to go live with a relative elsewhere, Leslie said, the program will pay for a bus ticket anywhere in the U.S. that Greyhound goes, as long as the verification process is completed. Relatives must be willing and able to take in the participants.

“We meet [participants] at the bus station and help them, and then we do a follow-up to make sure that they have arrived safely wherever they’re going,” she said.

'You can't summer in the Hamptons'
Vice Mayor Bobby DuBose was the only Fort Lauderdale commissioner who voted against the program, reported The Sun-Sentinel, expressing concerns the program could be abused and used as a cheap means for vacation.

A police spokesman denied that possibility.

"We're trying to get people off the streets and get them into a healthy, positive, environment," said spokesman Travis Mandell, reported The Sun-Sentinel. "This is not to be used as a vacation for a homeless person. You can't summer in the Hamptons and winter in Fort Lauderdale."

Others, including the executive director of the National Homeless Coalition, felt the move was political rather than altruistic.

"I think cities that embark on that as a course of action, like Fort Lauderdale, like New York City, like San Francisco, the nature of that is quite transparent, to move their problem onto somebody else's doorstep," Neil Donovan told The Sun-Sentinel. "I'm way more than suspicious. I don't believe that the stated purpose of the program is in fact the goal of the city."

A participant can only qualify once for a bus ticket. While Fort Lauderdale's mayor conceded it might not guarantee a person won't become homeless again, he said it was worth a try, citing similar programs that have operated for years in Florida's Palm Beach County and West Palm Beach. Manhattan also started a relocation program in 2007.

The police department's homeless outreach team told The Sun-Sentinel it placed more than 7,000 people in shelters and housing programs during the first eight months of 2011, but said 190 families were still homeless and waiting for opening as of Sept. 2.

"I can't ensure they're going to get taken care of wherever they're going," Seiler said. "If somebody expresses a desire not to be homeless in Fort Lauderdale, that's good news."

As of its last count, Palm Beach County had 2,148 homeless people, Tuck told msnbc.com. In addition to relocation services, she said the county is providing more affordable housing options and improve its interim housing services for homeless individuals. The 10-year plan is posted on Palm Beach County Homeless Advisory Board's website, TheHomeslessPlan.org. 

Leslie, with the county’s Center for Family Services, said the program gives homeless people more than bus tickets.

 “Just look at the isolation they must be feeling. How much better would they be feeling if they had support mentally, emotionally, and financially from other members of their family?”

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