Somebody Cares continues to meet urgent needs in the aftermath Hurricane Helene.
SCA partner CRI arrived in Arden, NC, a suburb of Asheville, on Monday. They began serving 600 hot meals on Tuesday which was not enough. So today, the team cooked up and served 800!
“We are serving up meals and trying to bring hope,” said CRI Director Sean Malone. The damage, he said, is extremely widespread. “I’ve never seen so much infrastructure down.”
Two more partners, Burnt Offerings from Texas and Ally Force from Minneapolis, are en route with a BBQ Pit and over a thousand pounds of meat, and another semi-load of 40K thousand pounds of sausage products will be arriving soon.
“We will also have a POD at the Asheville location to distribute supplies to the community,” said SCA Vice President Jodie Chircosta, adding that an additional four truckloads of materials–including non-perishable food items, generators, cleaning supplies, and more–are either en route or preparing to ship.
But Asheville is not the only place we are serving. Valdosta GA also experienced great devastation. Our partner, New Covenant Church and Pastor Mike Wells, is busy distributing supplies and helping families tarp damaged roofs before forecasted rain rolls in. Just today a box truck load of supplies from SC Tampa Bay was delivered there. Meats from the truck were given to two food pantries that are cooking and feeding people, one in downtown Valdosta and the other in Adel, which was also hit hard. Additional meat was provided to a restaurant in Valdosta that is cooking food and giving it to anyone who comes. Nonperishable food and hygiene items were sorted and will be distributed tomorrow. The church also got generators from SC Tampa Bay and SC Picayune to help families in need. SC Picayune provided fuel for the generators, which is a great need.
In addition, SCA is sending relief supplies to church partners serving in Hendersonville NC to meet needs in rural areas.
“We will be expanding into surrounding areas that may be overlooked as we have resources,” Jodie explained. “We are also trying to help partner churches with operating expenses while they are serving as response centers for their communities.”
Generators, she said, are a huge need as many people in western North Carolina rely on well water. With no power, they do not have potable water.
Here’s How You Can Help!
- $500 can ship cleaning and other supplies to impacted communities
- $250 can help partner churches with increased operating costs during relief efforts
- $100 can provide hot meals for 20 people
- $ 50 can give a gift card to a family to keep a generator fueled, replace medicine, etc.
- $ 10 can comfort a child with a Somebody Cares bear
We are currently not receiving small product donations. But if you have bulk product to donate please call our office at 713-621-1498 with details.
If your church is interested in organizing a collection of relief items, please email our office at SomebodyCares@SomebodyCares.
Thank you for caring! Donate here!