NORHTAMPTON — Northampton resident Billy Park took his daughter camping on Labor Day weekend in North Carolina, spending the last moments of summer with his brother and brother’s family.

He doesn’t know if that campsite is currently under water.

A born-and-bred “southern” from South Carolina, Park regularly visits the South every couple of months to see his family and enjoy his home region. He was at his Northampton home on Sept. 28 when he watched Hurricane Helene devastate western North Carolina, and what he saw “hit me at the heart.”

There have been at least 118 deaths in the Tar Heel State related to Hurricane Helene, accounting for nearly half of the 243 people killed by the storm across multiple states. Another 92 are still unaccounted for, Gov. Roy Cooper said at a press conference on Tuesday.

“I was watching the news and I saw a guy from Asheville where my family lives, my brother lives, and he was so distraught and upset about what was going on,” Park said. “I was looking at the picture of all the places I loved and grew up in, and I said I can’t just write a check, I gotta get involved.”

Inspired by a fundraiser for hurricane relief he saw in Kentucky, Park launched a drive of his own called “Truck of Love,” a tractor-trailer full of water, nonperishable foods, baby supplies and tools for the communities dealing with the aftermath of the Category 4 storm.

“Natural disasters bring everyone together. It brings out the sheer necessity of life that we all need: water, shelter, clothing,” Park said. “It doesn’t matter what color your skin is, what religion you are, what your political beliefs are, we realize that we all need those same things, including love.”

Park isn’t the only community member stepping up to provide aid for those impacted communities. Residents all around Hampshire County are holding fundraisers and supply drives, then partnering with other organizations to deliver the goods and funds down south, local communities coming together for a charitable cause.

“There were no boundaries between people that you normally see,” said local resident Betsy Mathews, such as political or religious differences. Instead, the effort was about people working together to help.

Mathews had the same feeling as Park when she heard the hurricane would hit western North Carolina, where she spent a majority of her life and where her two daughters were born. Soon after the storm ended, Mathews flew into Atlanta with a few friends from North Carolina, loaded a truck full of generators, masks, gloves, water, cleaning equipment and food, then delivered the goods to nonprofits in storm-stricken areas. She later met up with her older daughter to make wellness checks on residents in Buncombe County.

“What we saw, which was incredible and extremely impactful, was there was multiple layers of people helping people,” Mathews said. “We were helpers that came down, and I felt like we were helping the helpers.”

 

It was very difficult, Mathews said, for her and her daughter to see the Asheville are they knew and loved so well destroyed, and even harder to return to everyday life as if nothing happened. But Mathews had also never seen the community so united. She told a story about one family that was so excited to deliver water jugs to every house in the neighborhood, so all their neighbors could have clean water.

“People across the board said, ‘I’m getting to know my neighbors I never knew before,’ and it feels so good to be helping someone else,” she said.

When she got back a couple of weeks after the storm, Mathews found local hurricane relief fundraisers had mostly run their course. The one organization who responded to her request to collect more hurricane relief was Ascendance Inner World Arts in Florence, where her youngest daughter dances.

“We offer dance and programming of all kinds, but it’s really community that is at the heart of what we do,” Ascendance Director of Community Outreach Kathryn Carpenter said.

“We’re really proud of the work that the kids do, but this just has really taken on a life of its own.”

Carpenter gestured to a studio hallway full of clothing racks, flower bulbs and plastic bins of cleaning products and clothes. Each are a different fundraiser the organization is hosting, including the hurricane relief fundraiser. For the past five years, Carpenter said, the dance and arts studio has collected items for the Northampton Survival Center, Manna Soup Kitchen and Jack Dunphy’s Toys for Tots, but when Mathews brought up the work she was doing in North Carolina, Carpenter decided to focus on hurricane aid for now.

“There are so many donation sites where people can donate money, which is amazing,” she said. “But here you can open up your drawer and give something that’s gently used or clean. Not everybody can afford to write a check, so this is a way that people can help out, whether it’s neighbors close to home or neighbors far away.”

Carpenter said the majority of items will be delivered to the Southwick Civic Fund on Monday, but she will continue to collect items for southern communities until the end of October. Any items that aren’t delivered will go to the three nonprofits the studio traditionally supports.

Meanwhile, back in Northampton, Park says he will soon head south with the items collected for “Truck of Love,” and will combine their delivery with another effort in the area to help build homes. He said donations keep rolling in and the truck is secured, but he requires a place to store the huge amount of goods and people to help sort through the donations for clean and usable materials. Anyone looking to support his efforts can find more information on Park’s 50 HUGS website, at 50hugs.org.

While Truck of Love and Ascendance are ongoing fundraisers, other Hampshire County organizations have already finished their fundraisers. Tree services company Sparky’s Services in Granby collected half a school bus full of clothes, dishes, backpacks, flashlights and hygiene products within the span of four hours last Saturday, which owner Fred Lowenthal gave to New Life Worship Center in Westfield to drive down to communities in need.

Potter Christy Knox of Cummington hosted a four-day raffle fundraiser for the vast pottery community in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. Participants made a donation of any size for a chance to win one of her vases from Natural Elements Pottery. She raised $4,900 for Craft Emergency Relief Fund, a nonprofit that offers artists grants during times of crisis.

People aren’t the only ones receiving aid. Dakin Humane Society in Springfield took in 12 dogs hat had been up for adoption at Aiken County Animal Shelter in South Carolina to make room for pets who were separated from their families during the storm. Dakin spokesperson Lee Chambers said the lowered adoption fees during the first week of October to make room for the incoming pets, and requested that any adopters also donate some dog and cat food to shelters in the south. After the 12 dogs arrived on Oct. 10, staff began packing the same truck with pet supplies to send back, stuffing the truck so much that the doors barely closed.

“It went full circle,” Chambers said.

“We were able to take animals in, we were able to give people animals to adopt and give a break on the adoption fee, and others who were kind enough to contribute something were able to make a direct impact to help our friends in South Carolina get through this ordeal.”

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.