Locals Truck Supplies to Hurricane-Ravaged South
Agroup of local volunteers collected 18 pallets-worth of supplies and delivered them to Hurricane Helene survivors in North Carolina and Georgia.
“It was my wife’s Jasmine’s idea,” said William Calvert of La Grange. “I said, ‘If we’re going to do it, lets do it right and reach out to all these resources in town.’” The Calverts spoke to their church, Crosspoint Community Church, about the idea. The response was overwhelming. In a week, they collected enough supplies to fill a UHaul truck.
“The community came together and produced a lot,” Calvert said. “There was water, canned food, non-perishable food, diapers, baby wipes, blankets, jackets, some clothing, a lot of prepackaged food, medicine, dog food.”
Calvert said his wife connected with some church members in La Grange, Georgia, who were working on relief efforts.
“It kind of just happened serendipitously,” he said.
They left La Grange, Texas, on Friday, Oct. 11, around 3 p.m. They arrived in La Grange, Georgia, around noon the next day. They delivered the supplies to Tree of Life Church in La Grange, Georgia. From there, volunteers loaded the supplies onto pallets so they could be airlifted to communities stranded from damaged roads.
“They went from La Grange, Georgia, to Gainsville, Georgia, where civilian pilots flew it in to where it needed to go,” Calvert said.
Calvert said La Grange, Georgia, was far away from the disaster area.
“We didn’t see anything,” he said. “La Grange, Georgia, is beautiful, though. It’s on the western side of Georgia, so they didn’t get anything.”
Calvert thanked all of the community members who donated goods and Crosspoint Community Church for helping them organize the relief drive.
“We are pretty new to Crosspoint Church,” he said. “We’ve only been going for about a month. They really stepped up and did a lot of the organizing, a lot of hands to help package everything up. It filled up a two-car garage before we loaded it up.”
Calvert also thanked Calvin Mersiovsky for providing a discount on the U-Haul truck they used to transport the goods to Georgia.
“A lot of businesses helped out and donated money,” Calvert said. “We didn’t ask for a single dollar from anyone. We were going to fund the whole trip. The money we didn’t use for the trip went straight to the Cajun Navy.”
The Cajun Navy, a Louisiana- based volunteer search and rescue group, has played a big role in the Helene relief effort. Calvert said he and his family didn’t want any credit for the trip.
“All the credit goes to the community and the church,” Calvert said.