ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. – The American Red Cross already has volunteers in place to help with the recovery efforts from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and more may be on the way. The Red Cross is also taking monetary donations and is still in need of additional shelter volunteers.
In St. Charles County, an organization will be taking donations for the foreseeable future to help those who lost everything in North Carolina.
Ryon Fears of Operation Show Me Hope started taking collections after a heartfelt conversation with families directly impacted by hurricane Helene.
“It was a quick eye opener in how bad things really were down there. I mean absolutely catastrophic unlike, I think, anybody could ever imagine,” Fears said.
A St. Charles County logistics company loaned the space to take up the donations to help those impacted.
“And your heart breaks. When you see this devastation on the news, you know, it’s not even showing everything that it has,” Jimmy Presson of Apollo Express, a trucking and logistics company, said.
For Presson, he went through his house to find anything that could help at this time of need.
“Clothing, anything else, tools, boxes of nails, anything that I think that will help them,” he said.
The warehouse at 121 Fountain Lakes Industrial Drive in St. Charles is accepting donations of supplies, such as nonperishable food, water, clothing, tools, as well as VISA gift cards.
Presson says that even though we are a few states away, as Missourians we understand the destruction that storms can cause.
“We have, you know, the tornadoes that come through here and we’ve seen the devastation ourselves. But we want them to know Missouri is here for them and we’re glad that we can help,” Presson said.
And for Fears, he’s doing what he can to help from far away and realizes the need is widespread after back-to-back hurricanes in the Southeast.
“I want them folks down there to know that we’re all rallying together to help take care of them. And I know that it’s not in North Carolina. It’s everywhere. I want everybody to know that we’re Americans, and united we stand. We can help take care of each other,” Fears said.
To make a donation, visit redcross.org. To sign up to volunteer, visit redcross.org/volunteer. To volunteer, they ask that you commit to a two-week deployment and there is mandatory training.
