As of December 11th. we have raised $222,600.70 for Hurricane Helene Relief.

An Update From our Executive Director

October 8, 2024

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

“How are you holding up?”

“How can we help you?”

When you encounter our UWRC team, we’re going to ask how you’re doing. And we genuinely want to know. Your wellbeing is our top concern; physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. As we move further into long-term disaster relief efforts, the mental toll and emotional residue of this disaster is going to impact all of us in different ways.

Maybe you’re cool, calm, and collected during a crisis, but in quiet moments you find yourself bursting into tears. Maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed now and paralyzed by anxiety. Maybe you find yourself mentally replaying images of the devastation you’ve personally experienced or seen. Perhaps you find yourself compulsively watching the news or video of people being plucked from rooftops. If you’ve lost a loved one, your home, or suffered other losses shock, numbness, and grief are expected. But you may experience survivor’s guilt or other feelings that you don’t understand or expect. There’s no rule book for how you’re supposed to feel after experiencing a disaster and/or witnessing the suffering of family, friends, and neighbors. Vicarious trauma is real, so please be kind to yourself.

We’re going to keep encouraging people to use the disaster distress hotline (see below) and to talk with our peer support specialists, recovery coaches, and community health workers. We’re not clinically licensed therapists, but we are trained to provide trauma informed supports and to help connect you to additional services and resources. We also work closely with our local behavioral health providers, so you can expect multiple collaborative efforts to address community trauma in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

Time has a funny way of feeling warped after an event of this enormity. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 11 days since Helene hit our county. In some ways, it feels like it was months ago. In other moments, it feels like yesterday. Natural disasters of this magnitude change our lives so dramatically that we start thinking of life as ‘before’ and ‘after’.

Our UWRC team has been boots on the ground from the moment the storm blew through on that fateful Friday. Like so many of you, our team members were out in their neighborhoods, cutting trees and clearing roadways. Checking on their family and neighbors. Working at the emergency shelter alongside DSS staff at RS Central after the first evacuees arrived. If you’ve never had the experience of wrestling with a stubborn Red Cross cot, it's not unlike giving a cat a bath. The cat doesn’t want the bath and you might get a few scratches. PS- Rutherford County DSS did an amazing job under decidedly challenging conditions. They kept things going until Red Cross teams arrived days later and they're still providing support for displaced residents.

Over the course of the past 11 days, UWRC team members have fanned out throughout the community to help our fellow Rutherford County residents. We’ve been working in the shelters. Delivering food, water, medicine, and other necessities to homebound residents. Unloading trucks of supplies. Helping at distribution sites. Opening our building for phone charging and a water filling station. Taking first aid supplies to first responders. Coordinating volunteers to assist at nursing homes and other locations. Everywhere we go, we’ve been so heartened to see the compassion, love, and generosity flowing across our county. This is what true community looks like.

We’ve been deluged with calls from people who want to volunteer. We’ve had people who see our UWRC t-shirts stop us, asking how to jump in and help wherever they can. Right now, we’re trying to delicately remind everyone that we’re in the relatively early stages of this disaster. While the intentions are heartfelt and genuine, we ask everyone to please defer to our first responders and government officials to ensure that we’re not impeding their efforts in our desire to do something to help.

Rebounding from this devastation will be a lengthy process. When a large-scale natural disaster hits, it’s as though our entire community is suffering the death of a loved one. Sadly, we all know what that’s like, right? Immediately, we’re flooded with food, support, and people offering to help. We hear from people we haven’t seen in ages. Our family and friends from across the country show up for the funeral or send cards and flowers. The next week, people still check in because they know our pain is raw and we’re still reeling. As the first month unfolds, everyone wants to be there for us.

But then life returns to normal for everyone else. The offers of help start to taper while we remain cloaked in our heavy shroud of grief. As the numbness of loss starts to wear off, we really need our friends and family. Because we’re trying to recalibrate and establish a new sense of normalcy. We’re trying to rebuild our new life of ‘after’ and still need their support.

The point is, we’re in the early phase. Help is pouring in. But over the next few weeks, life will move on for people who don’t live here. New tragedies will strike. New disasters will hit. The intense attention we’re receiving now will start to wane. That’s when we’ll really need the help of volunteers from our own county and region. If you’ve felt helpless or frustrated because you want to do something meaningful, we absolutely need you. We need you in the long weeks and months ahead. Building back is a long-haul endeavor. Healing and recovery happen in layers. The need for help won’t disappear any time soon. But the offers from other places will. 

Thank you to everyone who’s stepped up to help. Thank you for contributing your time, energy, and labor. Thank you to everyone who’s donated to UWRC’s Hurricane Helene Relief Fund or to any other legitimate relief funds or efforts. We thank you for trusting us. Our 990s are public record, we undergo annual financial audits, and we have fiscal and programmatic oversight from our grant funders including the State of NC and the federal government. We’ve served Rutherford County for more than 50 years and we’re committed to serving our residents.

100% of disaster relief funds go to the community. We added the option for people to designate funds to Polk County as our neighbors there don’t have a United Way. All funds automatically default to Rutherford County unless people specifically designate them for Polk. You can also designate your funds specifically for Lake Lure or Chimney Rock Village. We’ve been meeting with people in shelters and other residents affected by the storm across the county to assess needs. We recognize that the people who are living this nightmare are the experts in what they need. We’re also asking local government and human service organization leaders about the needs they see to ensure we’re receiving broad community input for how to best help. We continue to work closely with United Way of NC as well.

All of us at UWRC are honored, humbled, and privileged to do this work. We’re here for the sprint meeting immediate needs and for the marathon of recovery and rebuilding. We believe in the strength, fortitude, and generous spirit of our community. We believe in the vision, competence, and determination of our community partners and leaders. We believe in the love, faith, and goodwill of our fellow residents. We are Rutherford Resilient. And we will recover. Together.

With gratitude,

Suzanne

Just a friendly reminder…

 SAMHSA staffs a Disaster Distress Helpline 24/7.  You may be put on a brief hold, but they answer relatively quickly and provide emotional distress counseling. The Disaster Distress Helpline (DDH) is the first national hotline dedicated to providing year-round disaster crisis counseling. This toll-free, multilingual, crisis support service is available 24/7 to all residents in the U.S. and its territories who are experiencing emotional distress related to natural or human-caused disasters.

 Call or text 1-800-985-5990.

Español: Llama o envía un mensaje de texto 1-800-985-5990 presiona “2.”

For Deaf and Hard of Hearing ASL Callers: Please text or call the Disaster Distress Helpline at 1-800-985-5990using your preferred Relay provider.