The Triangle continues to show support in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene devastating Western North Carolina.
by Anna Marie Switzer
From Harkers Island to Sylva, my world includes someone from every part of the state. I’m a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and each semester, I learn about a new small town where a fellow student grew up in.
That’s what brings the destruction of Hurricane Helene so close to home. It’s not just seeing devastating images of places that I love — the camp where I spent summers searching for crawfish, the trails that I explored with my little brother — but the impact on my family, friends, classmates and professors.
That sense of connection to the mountains is felt deeply here in Raleigh. “There has been an outpouring of support for Western North Carolina — folks in the Triangle are extremely generous,” says Amy Dominello Braun, chief communications officer for the Raleigh-based North Carolina Community Foundation. The NCCF will use its Disaster Relief Fund to support a long-term recovery process that will span “not just months, but years,” she says.
The generosity of North Carolinians has impressed folks outside of the state, too. “This was by far our largest project, double our second-largest,” says Alex Clark, the executive director of Operation Airdrop, a Texas-based organization that uses volunteer pilots to provide rapid relief to communities impacted by natural disasters.
By gathering donations at local businesses like Raleigh Brewing Co. and Andia’s Ice Cream and mobilizing Triangle volunteers to transport them, Operation Airdrop delivered more than 1.2 million pounds of supplies to remote areas in the 10 days following Hurricane Helene. “There’s no way we could have done it without the help of North Carolinians,” he says.
Jess Reiser, CEO and co-founder of Asheville-based Burial Beer Co., says the support from the Triangle has been “overwhelming in an incredible and heartwarming way.” Through support of their Raleigh taproom and online beer sales, Reiser hopes to “maintain a heartbeat” that will sustain their 130 employees and other small businesses in the area. “These have been the hardest weeks of my life, but we’re committed to supporting the passion, creativity and talent of the people that make Asheville Asheville,” Reiser says.
Rebuilding Western North Carolina will be an ongoing effort, but if any state can do it, it’s North Carolina. “Even after national attention moves somewhere else, we will be there,” says Braun. Here in the Piedmont, we’ll be shoulder to shoulder with our neighbors, helping them rebuild.
This article originally appeared in the November 2024 issue of WALTER magazine.
