The more than 50 Schuylkill County volunteers who signed up to go to Asheville, North Carolina, this week to help survivors of Hurricane Helene floodwaters were given an heroic send-off Sunday evening.
Their convoy of vehicles was led from Pottsville to Minersville and along Sunbury St. to Interstate 81 by a massive procession of emergency vehicles and a motorcycle club.
Along the main drag of Minersville, hundreds of people lined the street, screaming and waving as the volunteers’ vehicles made their first part of their long journey south.
This impromptu send-off was organized by Mike Greenawalt, of Minersville, who was quick to deflect credit for its success. His Facebook post on Saturday quickly gained attention and by Sunday evening, Sunbury St. in the borough was jammed with people all wanting to wish the local volunteers well as they embarked on their goodwill mission.
“I asked the right questions. I called the right numbers, and this community came together to come out here to support these individuals that are going down there to do God’s work,” Greenawalt told The Canary after the noisy procession made its way to the interstate. “They needed a send-off.”
Check out video of that send-off:
The team of volunteers are part of the Skook Road Trip Relief effort. In the last two weeks, more than $110,000 has been donated to this cause that was spawned by a conversation held between the husband-and-wife owners of Washington Hotel in Minersville.
In addition to the monetary donations, the Schuylkill County community – people and businesses, alike – also chipped in enough relief supplies and food donations to now fill at least 6 tractor-trailers, and several other cargo trailers, box trucks, and more.
Once the volunteers arrive in Asheville on Monday morning – they should have arrived by the time you read this article – they will begin working at a mobile kitchen that’s already been set up by an advance team that left Pottsville on Saturday.
The goal is to cook and serve well more than 10,000 hot meals to survivors of Hurricane Helene floodwaters in western North Carolina. The storm has killed an unknown number of people and destroyed the infrastructure, leaving months or years of clean-up ahead, along with a lifetime of painful memories.
Relief supplies, in addition to the mobile kitchen, will be set up as something like a grocery store/pantry where locals in need can pick up items that have been donated by people and businesses here in Schuylkill County.
Emotional Send-off for Schuylkill County Volunteers En Route to Helene Survivors
Prior to that big, noisy convoy making its way through Minersville, the volunteers gathered for one last time locally in Pottsville before they boarded a coach bus that’s taking them to North Carolina.
Handshakes, hugs, and tears were shared among those who packed their belongings onto the bus and prepared for a trip they believe will be life-changing in so many ways.
In some final words before they got on the bus, the volunteers were warned that what they expected to see when they arrived would likely be nothing like what they’d actually see.
Lori Steinhart, of Pottsville, is one of the more than 50 who decided to sign up to go to Asheville.
She said, “I always wanted to help in a disaster. These people need help.”
The situation she expects to see in North Carolina, she believes, will “make me more aware of what I have and what they’ve lost.”
Heather Legutko, of Port Carbon, also boarded the bus Sunday evening on its way to the disaster zone. She said she was inspired to go to Asheville almost as a way of paying it forward.
“Just the thought of it happening to us makes me want to help,” she said. “I would want someone to help us.”
She was surprised to learn last week that she’d be going with whom she calls her “cousin by proxy”, Melissa Wetzel, of Auburn.
Wetzel said she’s going because she’s worked in the restaurant industry for the last 20 years.
She was inspired by the idea of “cooking hot meals for people who don’t have them.”
Legutko said she’s taking time off work to go and that her co-workers all agreed to cover her shifts this week. In fact, each day for the past week that she was at work, those co-workers all donated a car load of supplies to donate to the local cause.
Wetzel had a tearful goodbye prior to boarding the bus with her daughter, Annalei.
Brian Gossert, who works in Minersville, said he’s going to North Carolina because he wants “to be a man of action” and “never got to get my boots on the ground” in a situation like the one that exists where he’s going.
Ben Mathis, of Pottsville, said he’s going with the group of volunteers because he loves to help people.
“I know that those people down there are in dire need of help,” he said.
Just before getting on the bus, the volunteers were lead in prayer by Pastor Preston Broadhurst of Kimmel’s Church, outside Orwigsburg.
The plan for this trip is to arrive in Asheville early Monday morning and be back in Schuylkill County on Thursday. All the kitchen equipment and supplies taken with them will be left behind so the community there can make use of it going forward.
There is already a group of local volunteers who are ready to go to North Carolina if a future trip is arranged.
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