SWANNANOA, N.C. (WLOS) — The call for help continues in many mountain communities as we near the one-year milestone of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina.
In this week’s WNC Heroes, News 13 visited multiple nonprofit organizations who continue to help those in need.
One nonprofit, the Valley Hope Foundation, formed in the Swannanoa River Valley right after the storm. The organization has worked for almost one year to provide direct assistance to families and communities in Swannanoa and Black Mountain.
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“We came together,” executive director Will Carpenter said. “We’re all locals, we live here and we recognized immediately that the need for help and assistance for this community after the storm was immense.”
In the early days that followed the storm, Carpenter said they started by spending most of their time knocking on doors. This work proved to not only be immense, but ongoing, as they still continue to provide food and supplies to nearby residents in need.
Carpenter said that they’re able to do this work because of their partnerships with other nonprofits, like Drawn to Help. News 13 first caught up with Drawn to Help in Spruce Pine earlier this month, when the nonprofit was named the WNC Hero of Aug. 8.
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This week, Drawn to Help’s founder, Steve Barr, and his team were at Valley Hope Foundation stocking up to deliver supplies to residents of Black Mountain and Swannanoa.
“We could not do what we do without these people,” Barr said. “They provide so much food for us to take to people in the most devastated areas.”
Carpenter added that on average, they provide food and supplies to 2,000 to 8,000 families per week. For Will Carpenter, that is what keeps him going: the people he’s met along the way.
“We’ve had the opportunity of seeing the silver lining of this entire experience as the exceptional quality of people who have answered this call,” Carpenter said.
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He said that it’s heartening to see so many people ready to serve their community and want to wake up every day to help someone else in need.
“There are times when it feels easy, and times when it doesn’t at all,” he added.
As long as their motivation to serve others continues, he said they have no plans of stopping.
“I’ve not yet come across a person or organization who said, ‘Nope, I don’t want to help.’ It’s, ‘How can we be of help?'” he said.
