Hurricane Helene relief: The SJ.com giving thread (with two matching opportunities!)

[I Should Coco]

$50 donated.

I support the American Red Cross

Thanks for the link -- I also donated $50 to the American Red Cross.

Every little bit helps.

 

[justgladtobehere]

If it took him six attempts to land a Robinson helicopter in that forking football field, he needs some serious additional training.

What could he be doing wrong?

 

[three_bags_full]

The video didn't show an attempt to land, but that's a very large field. He said it took six attempts to get into it. Just found that pretty odd.

 

[Driftwood]

God bless Dolly

 

[dixiehack]

God bless Dolly

I figured something like that was coming. She's always been amazing about stepping up when things get really bad in her backyard, like with the Gatlinburg fires a few years back.

 

[dixiehack]

Rolling into the Saturday college football schedule, I'm counting $750 in direct contributions on our tote board, give or take a country music hall of famer. That means we chuckleheads have made $2250 worth of impact in the lives of people putting their lives back in order.

Still got the fourth quarter to go with matching gifts, so let's make it a weekend to remember. If you favorite uni or NFL team racks up a memorable win, consider commemorating it with a donation in the amount of the final scoreboard.

 

[wicked]

$50 to the NC Disaster Relief Fund.

 

[dixiehack]

You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it
— Rabbi Tarfon

The weather and the news is very sobering today. It seems likely that Hurricane Milton will be causing chaos and distress for possibly millions more people in addition to those picking up the pieces after Helene.

I've deliberately not invoked religion on this thread because that is a fraught issue that I don't want to become a stumbling block for anyone's generosity. But if you are understandably discouraged by the enormity of what has happened and what is to come, I hope you can take some solace in generations of people who have pondered whether anything they do has lasting significance and concluded that the best they can do is to focus on their one little corner of the greater work.

By my count, we have directly raised $800 from this thread, which after being matched twice over means there has been $2400 worth of impact that we cranks and smartashes and cynics have made for our fellow pashengers to the grave, as deckens once put it.

The opportunity still exists for a dollar you give now to magically turn into three. The need will still exist for those lives ripped apart by Helene even as Milton takes over the headlines. And if you are logically concerned that this requires more than localized charity, there are fine organizations putting in work for every hurricane zone.

As you are able, please consider giving. And once more thank you to those who have already done so.

 

[Driftwood]

While it doesn't help with the match, when figuring totals you can add $50 my wife gave directly to an account to benefit someone she works with who lost everything.

 

[dixiehack]

This thread started last Tuesday (I think, the timestamps here get wonky) so completing the loop on the seventh day feels appropriate.

After today I'm going to put a pause on daily reminders unless there is enough response to warrant continuing. As mentioned before I think we are in a state of both numbness and dread of what Milton has in store. Likely once he gets through with Florida there will be fresh appeals for help, not just here but across our nation.

I haven't yet checked with our anonymous benefactors, but I cannot imagine they would turn down matching donations ashisting Central and South Florida once the storm pashes.

In the meantime, the opportunity to give and have that gift multiplied is still open here. If you have felt at any time like it is something you might want to do, in any amount, I absolutely encourage you to do so. Resetting your focus on others is a very healing activity.

To our friends picking up the pieces from Helene, we send you our love and share in your heartbreak. And for our Florida folks, all I can do is pash along the prayer I send to my friends when tropical weather approaches and I feel otherwise powerless:

Stay dry

 

[Songbird]

In honor of Gretta who was born in North Carolina.

https://www.nccommunityfoundation.org/give

Thanks to everyone here who donated, the generous matcher(s) + the starter of the giving thread.

 

[dixiehack]

The last couple of days I've had chainsaws on my mind.

First and foremost, this came up because of this excellent article @Inky_Wretch linked from Outside magazine, where an Asheville-based writer detailed the devastation in that city.

https://www.outsideonline.com/adven...is/hurricane-helene-asheville-north-carolina/

What struck me though were a couple of different pashages about local folks rallying to each other's side with quite literally the tools on hand.

My friend with the truck and the chainsaw is there, exactly where I told him to meet us, and the woman enters the vehicle and they head towards the hospital. I don't hear how she is for another three days because there's no cell service, and nobody hears from anyone unless in a face-to-face conversation.

I go back to my own house to ashess the damage and hug my wife and children.

By the end of the day, a crew of men in a truck I've never seen before have chainsawed their way through half of the downed trees in the neighborhood. These aren't city crews or electric-company employees. These are dudes in trucks doing what they can to help.

That's hippie-dippy Asheville, a New Age outdoors vibe place that votes very differently from the surrounding country folks of WNC.

But it also brought to mind Facebook stories that friends and family have shared about country folks in the hardest-hit areas banding together to take care of their neighbors too. It didn't take much Googling to find news stories making that same point.

Black Mountain community finds creative solutions to help neighbors

"We have a great little neighborhood, our neighbors came up with chainsaws and gave us a path," said Jennifer Smith from Black Mountain.

Jennifer Smith's car was hit by a tree and the storm left her stuck with no way out until neighbors cleared up their road. And she was far from alone. Many Black Mountain residents had to evacuate or had severe damage.

She said she's grateful for the volunteers who have been going door to door helping residents clear debris to find a way out.

There are other stories too, like the high school football team crossing the county line to help gut houses in the backyard of a Friday night rival. Or the people of a swing district outside Richmond organizing a supply drive and hauling supplies down themselves.

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https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-new...-for-helene-victims-north-carolina-oct-5-2024

"I feel like our country has been divided long enough," Bryant said. "It's unfortunate something like this has to happen to pull people together, but it does and it happened. It's the community, it's people helping people. I couldn't be more thankful."

The angry, argumentative people get noticed online but at their core most people just want to grab a chainsaw and help, you know? We disagree with each other on a national scale about how to best help, but in a crisis people just start cutting a path out for others and don't stop to check registration papers first.

Hurricane relief won't solve all our problems but maybe it is the first step back towards a consensus on a shared set of values where we can wrestle with the rest of it from a place of sanity.

The need from Helene is ongoing and we are just starting to get a fuller picture of the devastation in Florida left behind by Milton. We aren't all in a position to grab a chainsaw but we can still help.

I have donated an additional $25 for the N.C. Community Disaster Relief Fund mentioned in my first post. Combined with the donation from @Songbird above and all the wonderful gifts the rest of you have already given, that marks $875 from posters here, which has unlocked an additional $1750 in anonymous matching funds. There is still an opportunity for the next $125 worth of contributions to get matches twice over as well. Any amount you give great or small will help.