It started as a conversation between a wife and husband. The goal was simple: Let’s help the victims of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina by cooking them some hot meals.
A little less than two weeks later, a massive donation drive resulted in more than $100,000 in monetary donations and enough physical goods to fill up 4 tractor trailers, 6 cargo trailers, 3 box trucks, and 2 campers.
On top of all that, more than 50 volunteers are taking time away from their jobs, their families, and their businesses and boarding a charter bus headed for Asheville, NC, to help deliver some coal region relief to a population that’s had their lives turned inside-out by Hurricane Helene floodwaters.
“It’s incredible,” Evelyn Kopinetz told The Canary on Friday afternoon while standing in a warehouse on Peacock St. in Pottsville, where all the donations were being collected and sorted.
Kopinetz is the wife of Brandon, the owners of Washington Hotel in Minersville. It was her idea to encourage her husband to do something to help the folks of North Carolina who’d been ravaged by Helene.
Brandon had experience helping victims of severe weather, specifically in Port Carbon back in 2018, by setting up a mobile kitchen and cooking victims some hot meals when they otherwise couldn’t get any.
But that idea to go to North Carolina and set up a quick mobile kitchen and serve some hot meals grew … and it kept growing.
“I expected to take a box truck down,” Evelyn said. “I think it’s great.”
There will definitely be a box truck headed from Schuylkill County to North Carolina. Along with that box truck are a few more, a few tractor trailers, and a few other vehicles stuffed to the gills with relief supplies.
The goal is still the same. Volunteers from the coal region will be setting up a mobile kitchen – they expect to set up in an area near an Asheville church at the beginning of this week – and serving thousands of meals to those in need.
When they leave to come back home to Schuylkill County, the kitchen equipment and enough food to feed a community for a long time will be left behind.
In addition to that, our volunteers will also be setting up a temporary grocery store, of sorts, containing the pallets full of donations collected from the Schuylkill County community over the last 10 days or so.
In the last few days, the final donations have been collected and sorted at that warehouse in Pottsville.
They’ve ranged in size, from just a few canned goods, a case of water, to an entire tractor-trailer load of chicken. No matter the size of the donation, each has been truly appreciated by those accepting them and will be a godsend to those for whom they’re intended.
On Friday, the primary organizers of this massive effort, known as the Skook Road Trip Relief, gathered in that same warehouse and went over the logistics. Where they’d be going and who’s going where and doing what once they all finally get to North Carolina were discussed.
An advance scout team departed Schuylkill County en route to Asheville on Saturday morning. They were followed Saturday afternoon by the first tractor-trailer load of supplies.
“Everything’s been falling into place,” Ty Gardner, a volunteer from Pottsville, said on Friday at the warehouse.
The goals and intent here are mighty. It’s been a monumental effort, bringing together people of all ages and businesses of all sizes, showing the true spirit of the coal region in trying to offer just a glimmer of hope to fellow Americans.
Perhaps the lesson these coordinators and all the volunteers needed to hear before they embark to North Carolina was said by Aaron Fisher, from Blessings of Hope out of Lancaster County, who’s helping coordinate the vehicle logistics for the team here in Schuylkill County.
He’s already been to the affected area and said to volunteers here, “It’s not as important to get something done as it is to connect with the people.”
Sendoff Planned Sunday Evening
A sendoff for the main group of volunteers is planned for Sunday evening. It’s a chance to see those from Schuylkill County headed to North Carolina.
The entourage will travel along Sunbury St. in Minersville on its way to Interstate 81 and then south to North Carolina. If you’re interested in seeing this sendoff, it’s best to be in place by about 6:30 p.m. on Sunday.
FEATURE PHOTO CAPTION: Donations are dropped off Saturday morning at the Dunkin’ at Westwood in Pottsville. (Coal Region Canary photo)
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