Islanders respond to help Hurricane Helene victims

Supplies will go to a MVRHS grad living in South Carolina, who will help with distribution.

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Updated Oct. 9

They kept on coming on Sunday. Armloads of canned goods, paper towels, cleaning supplies, bottled water. 

For several hours, organizers at the Legion Hall in Vineyard Haven said, there was a constant stream of Islanders coming by to drop off supplies, oftentimes as many as six people at once. 

The effort is part of a supply run quickly organized by Vineyard residents and Ben Ferry, a 2009 graduate of Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, who is living in a region of South Carolina that’s been hit hard by Hurricane Helene. 

On Wednesday, a few dozen Islanders returned to the Legion to help pack supplies into the bed of a semi truck, with the hopes that the aid reaches South Carolina by Thursday.

“I had no idea what to expect, but the Island community always rallies,” said Kim Murphy, an Island resident who has helped organize the supply run. 

Ferry, who moved to McCormick in the past few years from West Tisbury, said that his property hasn’t suffered damage compared with others. So the former Marine has been helping organize and distribute food and goods to people around the region, with a group of fellow veterans. He said that many in the community are low-income and don’t have access to food and water.

While the devastation has been vast, he said it’s been moving to see Islanders back home offering help.

“It’s been overwhelming,” Ferry said. “It’s been the Island community coming together the way I knew that it would. This is the working class of Martha’s Vineyard who stays there the entire winter. They are giving the extra $100 they had to eat out; instead, they are buying goods to send down to me. They had to sacrifice that, but they did it to help their fellow Americans. It’s humbling to me.”

Aside from donated goods, Ferry said that he’s received $2,200 that he will distribute as gift cards to buy fresh food and specialty items.

Murphy and Maria Ventura, another Island resident, helped jump-start the drive with Ferry. The makeshift team put together a flier, canvassed Facebook, notified local media, and booked the Legion starting on Thursday. Following yesterday’s loading, Islander Steven Araujo will drive the truck south.

Ferry is hopeful that the shipment will arrive in South Carolina by Thursday evening, and they have plans to start handing out food at a local school on Friday. They also plan to coordinate smaller supply runs to more remote areas of the region.

As for what the scene is like in McCormick, Ferry — who recently moved to the area to expand his dog-training business — told The Times in an interview that his community has been devastated. Trees were blocking the main road in the rural area, power is still out in many areas after the storm rolled through, water and gas and other supplies are still scarce, and homes have been completely destroyed. 

“I woke up in the morning, got to the end of my driveway, and I don’t know how to explain it. It was an absolute catastrophe,” Ferry told The Times on Friday. “I have never seen this kind of devastation in my life.” 

Ferry’s comments echo what national news has been reporting as one of the deadliest hurricanes in the modern era since it made landfall on Sept. 26. More than 220 people have died, and hundreds are still reported missing. President Joe Biden has mobilized a thousand active-duty soldiers to join the North Carolina National Guard.

Coffee shop collecting aid too 

The supply run isn’t the only local effort. Mocha Mott’s in Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven is collecting funds to help storm-ravaged communities of Western Carolina, some of the hardest hit by Hurricane Helene.

Tim Dobel, co-owner of the iconic Island coffee shops, was a longtime resident of Marion — a city 40 minutes west of Asheville, N.C. — and he is hearing firsthand accounts from friends about the damage.

“The devastation down there is unimaginable,” Dobel told The Times. “One of my favorite things to do was drive up into the mountains in these little communities. And some of them, they are just gone. It is staggering.” 

In an effort to help the region, Mocha Mott’s has set up buckets at each of its locations for anyone to donate cash. Dobel and his business partner, Meredith Aldrich, will match any dollar submitted. So far, they’ve raised $1,000, and have matched that with another $1,000.

Dobel said they are donating the money to two organizations: BeLoved Asheville, a local organization that provides clothing and food to those impacted; and Grassroots AID Partnership, a larger group that helps grassroots organizations. 

Dobel worries about the recovery and how long it will take. Much of the economy in Asheville and surrounding area relies on tourism, and it’s unlikely many will be visiting, with restaurants and art galleries wiped out. 

“If a hurricane and a flood went through and took out the best parts of Vineyard Haven, Oak Bluffs, and Edgartown, what would we do?” Dobel said. “The biggest issue is, How are they going to make a living?”

 

13 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you to all those who are stepping up to do FEMA’s job since they spent monies allocated for disasters on the illegal migration problem. So appropriate for this administration to send 157 million dollars to Lebanon while American citizens are suffering from Helene. And you wonder why people are calling on patriots to vote MAGA.

  2. The oceans have risen in temperature about 88 trillion kilojoules per cubic mile in the last ten years.
    That’s 88 trillion kilojoules extra, above the regular temperature.
    That is a massive amount of stored energy, therefore one of the reasons for the giant storms we see around the world today.
    Hurricane Milton was one of the largest storms in history.
    Severe Tropical Cyclone Freddy Feb/March 2023 had the most accumulated cyclone energy of any storm ever recorded.
    South China and Southeast Asia experienced one of the most destructive and deadly typhoons ever recorded two weeks ago.
    We can thank people who have the courage to build windmills (and oppose the incredibly powerful oil industry) to counteract Global Warming.

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