In the days after Hurricane Helene ravaged communities from Florida to the Carolinas, Naperville real estate agent Kristina Irvine received an unexpected call for aid.
While the sheer scale of the emergency that Helene left in its wake began to emerge, Irvine heard from a client-turned-friend who said they had family impacted by the Category 4 storm in western North Carolina. Her friend broached the idea of collecting donations to take down and asked if Irvine wanted to help.
Irvine was open to donating and figured she’d widen the net. So she posted on Facebook. Almost immediately, she was inundated with interest far outstretching her immediate circle.
Now, she’s leading a community-wide effort to take supplies to those who need it most.
For the next two weeks, Irvine is amassing donations for hurricane relief from anyone with supplies to spare in and around the Naperville area. Whatever she collects will be driven down to the small North Carolina mountain town of Bryson City — about an hour west of Asheville, which was particularly battered by Helene — on Oct. 21. She has connected with local relief efforts in Bryson City, which is why the shipment is headed there.
Helene is the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. As of Saturday, the death toll was up to at least 227. About half of the victims were in North Carolina, while dozens more were killed in Georgia and South Carolina.
A few days into gathering aid, supplies are already pouring in, Irvine says. In fact, they’re coming in far faster and in a far greater amount than she anticipated.
“I don’t even know how to give a quantity,” she said. “There’s easily the equivalent of 30 extra large boxes from Menards. It’s a massive amount of stuff. … I don’t even have the words because I don’t know that I’ve had the time to process.”
Irvine is using her Naperville real estate office at 608 S. Washington St. as a landing spot for donations. Between capitalizing on working relationships she’s built in the community, messages sent out to current and former clients and just word of mouth, word of Irvine’s local effort has spread quickly, she said.
Nearly two dozen businesses and organizations from Yorkville to Westmont are now partnering with Irvine to serve as drop-off sites for donated items, she said. Participating locations include the DuPage Children’s Museum, Valley Animal Hospital in Geneva and Tiffnie’s Dog Grooming in Des Plaines.
A particular linchpin to the operation is Naperville-based Prager Moving & Storage, which has volunteered to take donations to North Carolina.
The company will be driving supplies down as part of a shipment it already had scheduled for Bryson City, according to Prager’s vice president of sales and marketing Steve Bonnichsen, who noted the company’s capacity to help was really a function of chance.
It was Irvine who initially reached out to Prager to ask if it could lend its moving services to deliver donations. As it happened, Prager had a semi-truck headed to North Carolina mid-month.
“It was just perfect timing,” Bonnichsen said. The company agreed to leave half of the scheduled semi empty for donated supplies.
They’re well on their way to filling that space, according to Irvine. Donations so far have included everything from diapers and basic tools to food and clothes. There are a few items Irvine would like to see more of, including baby formula, blankets and bedding, paper plates, reusable bags and first aid kits.
Generally though, she said, “There’s no such thing as too much or enough at this point.”
Even if there is overflow, Irvine and Bonnichsen have discussed the possibility of additional shipments. At the end of the month, Prager has another truck slated to travel to Florida. The company is planning to reserve half of that semi for donations too, Bonnichsen said, with another hurricane taking aim at Florida this week.
As of Tuesday, Hurricane Milton was expected to make landfall on the west coast of Florida Wednesday as a Category 3 storm. The system is threatening the Tampa Bay area, which is home to more than 3.3 million people. Milton is also putting other stretches of Florida’s west coast at risk that were hit when Helene made landfall on Sept. 26.
“We’re all in this together. We got to help each other out,” Bonnichsen said.
In thinking about where else supplies are or would soon be needed, Irvine said, “I can’t even explain the way my brain had to shut down to try and process what we’re doing while hearing about Florida at the same time. … It’s just, what do you say? What do you do?”
Still, what she holds on to is that she knows “with every fiber of my being that not only are we giving things that they need to get through this time and that are necessary and critical and important, but I think more than that, I believe with my whole heart … that (this shows those affected) that the world is coming together for them.”
Efforts in Naperville and across Illinois, hundreds of miles and states away from hurricane impact areas, are — to some degree — a testament to that, even beyond the donations that Irvine is helping to facilitate.
On Sept. 25, a statewide response team for natural disasters known as the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, or MABAS, deployed two 12-person crews to the Asheville area to help with search and rescue operations, said the team’s Operation Sections Chief Kevin Lyne. MABAS is composed of firefighters from departments across Illinois.
Naperville Fire Department Lt. Chuck Gros is one of those firefighters. He was deployed to Asheville, according to Naperville Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis. MABAS crews are set to return by the end of this week.
More than 60 Red Cross volunteers from Illinois, including 21 from the organization’s Greater Chicago chapter, also have been deployed to help with recovery from Helene, according to American Red Cross of Illinois spokeswoman Mara Thompson.
Also helping in the effort is Naperville’s Meson Sabika, which next week is holding a Hurricane Helene Disaster Relief Fundraiser. On Tuesday, Oct. 15, the restaurant is planning to direct all lunch and dinner sales to the World Vision organization in support of hurricane victims.
As for the supplies en route to North Carolina, the last day to donate before Prager leaves for Bryson City is Oct. 19. Final donations can be brought then to Prager’s location at 155 Fort Hill Drive from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For anyone looking to donate before Oct. 19, supplies can be brought to Irvine’s Washington Street Office between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. A full list of items needed can be found at bit.ly/486njju.
The Associated Press contributed.
