In quite heartwarming news coming out of the Thanksgiving season, volunteers worked to help feed thousands of their fellow North Carolinians for the holiday in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which caused immense damage and suffering for thousands of Americans, particularly those in Western North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia.
As background, much of the damage is yet to be repaired, and thousands of Americans in those regions are stuck living in tents and other temporary shelters despite the cold weather and many weeks since the disaster occurred. The massive flooding and related landslides caused much of the damage and killed hundreds, with the National Weather Center describing the devastation as a “once in-1,000-year flooding event.”
In any case, the man who stepped up to help this time was David Burke. 59 years old and living over 300 miles away from the afflicted areas, Mr. Burke looked at the massive damage wrought by Hurricane Helene and decided to step up and help his fellow North Carolinians over Thanksgiving, something that hundreds of others joined him in doing.
A father of two, Mr. Burke initially decided he would cook a thousand Thanksgiving meals for those who can’t celebrate the holiday because of the massive damage or because they lost family members. But, though he initially planned on cooking the meals solo, a great number of fellow North Carolinians stepped up to pitch in.
In fact, over two hundred volunteers from Mr. Burke’s home community of Avery County, North Carolina heard what he was doing and stepped up to help. Altogether, those many volunteers and Mr. Burke were able to cook 5,000 meals, more than five times his initial goal, for afflicted North Carolinians.
Commenting on the relief effort to CNN, Mr. Burke said that really he just wanted to keep it quiet, but that became impossible because of how many people wanted to help. He said, , “You would be amazed at just how many people have shown up here to come help this little old guy when all he really wanted to do was go out there and cook 1,000 meals and come home and nobody would ever know a thing about it.”
Continuing with his comments, Mr. Burke added that the experience of seeing so many people want to provide aid to their fellows changed him and confirmed his faith, telling the news outlet, “The experience has already has changed me, there’s no question about it. It confirms for me any doubts I ever had in my own faith.”
Continuing, he noted that there was immense destruction and that he saw it as his duty to help, saying, “I’ve seen the devastation these people have been faced with. We know that there are people still living in tents and trying to stay warm. People don’t have anything. Some people had their homes being washed away in the river, and then there’s so many people still missing in certain places. What do you do about that? All we can do is go out there and do what we know to do and try to help people as much as we can.”
Angie Wade Acree, one of the organizers, told CNN, “I have a better perspective that there is still good in the world and that giving back is even more important than ever.” She added, “Our hope and prayer is that people with will read the story and realize that they can step up and help people in their own community, and that it takes starting with your neighbors to help each other.”
Featured image credit: X (formerly Twitter)
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