How to Help Western North Carolina

If you want to donate material goods like blankets, canned food, or bottled water, please wait!

Currently:

• All hands are needed for rescue and emergency services and the personnel are not available to collect, sort, and distribute material donations;
• Access to these areas is almost completely blocked by land;
• Individual donations are an extremely inefficient means of assistance — you can help a great deal more by donating to organizations which can then buy and transport supplies in bulk.

If you have materials to donate, please consider helping families in your local area who have experienced flooding, wind damage, power outages, etc. There may come a time when physical goods can be effectively transported into the worst hit zones, but it’s going to be a while.

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The following organizations are currently working in the area and are the quickest and surest way for folks here to provide desperately needed assistance to our neighbors up the mountain:

The American Red Cross: Hurricane Helene Assistance — Red Cross offers food, shelter, supplies, and emotional support to victims of crisis. They are already on the ground and can put donations to work immediately.

World Central Kitchen — WCK is probably the quickest way to provide food assistance to the hardest hit areas right now.

Americares — This organization focuses on getting critical medical equipment and supplies to devastated zones.

Direct Relief — DR provides several types of assistance, including transportation support.

Save the Children: Children’s Emergency Fund — This group focuses on vulnerable families with children.

CARE — CARE provides emergency assistence such as food, personal health and hygiene needs, and cash assistance to those most in need during crisis.

International Medical Corps — These folks are already in the zone providing medical assistance.

Salvation Army: Hurricane Helene Relief — The Salvation Army is providing food assistance as well as spiritual and emotional support to survivors of Helene.

State of NC Hurricane Recovery — You can contribute directly to North Carolina’s hurricane recovery fund.

Go Fund Me Hurricane Relief Fund — Sadly, scammers do take advantage of tragedies, so if you want to provide direct help but don’t know who to trust, try Go Fund Me’s Hurricane Relief Fund, which will raise funds for verified victims of the storm.

Global Giving — GG’s hurricane relief fund will help individual families recover from disaster in the long and short term.

All Hands and Hearts — For long-term recovery, AH&H is establishing a fund for relief efforts over the coming year.