Within 48 hours, the New Hyde Park community collected enough supplies for Hurricane Helene victims to fill 24 pallets in a 53-foot trailer.
The trailer — donated by North Shore Neon Signs — left the village at 10 a.m. on Friday and arrived at the America Cares distribution center in Arden, N.C., at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday. From this distribution center, truck drivers made deliveries to Ashville, Chimney Rock and Lake Lure, which are mostly inaccessible due to washed-away roads.
The pallets contained clothing, outerwear, boots, cleaning supplies, pet supplies, personal hygiene products, flashlights, batteries, first aid kits, diapers, baby supplies, blankets, water, 500 dozen eggs, 450 pounds of butter, 400 pounds of cheese, 250 pounds of bacon and 3,000 loaves of bread.
“We adopted two towns in North Carolina that were hit very hard — Chimney Rock and Lake Lure,” Christopher Devane, mayor of New Hyde Park, said. “We knew a local business owner that had a brother down there and he was telling us all about it and they were completely wiped out.”
Devane hosted the drive in coordination with Lance Belcher, owner of Doodyman Plumbing, and his assistant, Ann Marie Superville; Ronnie, Roger, and Reid Sakowich, owners of Sakowich Plumbing; Lakewood Bakery; and the Nuzzi family.
“The mayor was the driving force behind this,” Cheryl Nowak, event coordinator for the Village of New Hyde Park, said. “And the people he enlisted like Reid Sakowich, like Lance Belcher from Doodyman, all of them. They are the ones that really, really did an amazing job on this. They got the trucks, they got the driver, they got everything. It was all hands on deck.”
The donation site was located at the Village Hall parking lot from Oct. 16 to Oct. 17. Troy Belcher, Tyler Belcher, Louis Miller and Tommy Kane helped organize items there. Patrick Connell, Michael Keuler and Miguel Juarez assisted with loading the items on the truck.
Nowak said all of the items were separated by categories, such as water, food and cleaning essentials. She said they were placed in marked boxes so the people in the distribution center could send them out quickly.
“We reached out to Chimney Rock and the problem was they had no supplies to clean their houses,” Nowak said. “We had a list of the things they wanted and the last thing they wanted was clothing.”
Devane said that on the first day of collecting supplies, the residents of the two towns asked for nonperishable items such as clothes, gloves and water. Midway through the day, they told Devane that they had enough of those items and needed cleaning supplies.
Nowak said people were continuing to donate clothes, so she immediately told the workers at the donation site to start prioritizing and asking for cleaning supplies like mops and brooms. She said homes and businesses in North Carolina were filled with mud.
With the excess donated clothes, Nowak said the village donated them to a clothing drive at New Hyde Park Road School. She said the village was able to take care of two things — hurricane relief and helping the PTA at the Road School.
“The more I read, the more I realized it was really hard to be able to even get to these two towns — Chimney Rock and Lake Lure — so then we reached out to Ashville, which was the closest largest city to these places,” Nowak said.
Nowak said the village was able to contact people in Ashville, who said that many of the roads were closed and that it would be difficult for them to bring supplies directly to Chimney Rock and Lake Lure.
The people in Ashville told Nowak that the victims needed eggs, fresh bread, bacon and cheese.
“The following day, in the morning, we get a heads-up that they need food,” Devane said. “And we adjusted and the community responded.”
“I said, ‘Guys, here’s another thing they desperately need’ and the minute I said that, Reid got on the phone, called all of his friends that owned businesses and told them what they needed,” Nowak said.
Devane said Lakewood Bakery provided a good portion of the food after two hours of the requested change.
“How impressive is that,” Devane said. “And talk about the community stepping up.”
Nowak said that when she called people in Ashville to tell them about the food being shipped, they were “rejoicing.”
With the hundreds of items the village donated, Nowak said the distribution center is sending about one truck of supplies a day to nearby towns, including Chimney Rock and Lake Lure.
