By Dolores Smith
On Sunday afternoon the Banner Elk donation center was a hotbed of activity. Situated in the old Historic Banner Elk School, the Resource Center has been the place where local volunteers have been receiving donations. Volunteers were busy receiving, sorting and organizing donations of everything from toilet paper, to paper towels, to diapers, to canned soup, even MREs that have arrived from across the region. As of today the town of Banner Elk still has no running water. Inside the old school, classroom after classroom was filled with a mind boggling assortment of items including those necessary to prepare a hot meal without the use of water. Paper plates, plastic cutlery, napkins and paper towels were plentiful. Some classrooms were filled with baby items, others with canned goods and other food items, still another contained an assortment of over the counter medicines. Volunteers were helping some community members in need fill up boxes as an endless stream of cars continual to drop off more donated items.
Nancy Owen of Banner Elk who directs the town’s Tourism Development Authority was on hand helping to coordinate the process Through purely exhausted eyes but with the vibrancy of the energizer bunny she remarked that, while overwhelmingly grateful for all of these donations, what the residents of Banner Elk and surrounding communities really need now was cash assistance. “We need cash. We are able to fill peoples basic needs of food and drinking water which they need in order to survive, but these folks are going to need money to move beyond this tragedy.” Many residents of the community will require extensive repairs to their homes, or to their property. Driveways and bridges leading to houses are demolished; vehicles lay upside down in ditches, in three feet of mud. Now many of these residents are jobless as businesses are closed or damaged, even destroyed which means no paychecks for the for seeable future. Even a $1000 home insurance deductible combined with a $1000 vehicle insurance deductible may be a nearly impossible obstacle to surmount, to say nothing of gasoline, mortgages, electricity and other utility payments. Shops, stores and restaurants are nearly cut off from commerce due to the level of destruction, including the loss of water service.
In an effort to facilitate these urgently needed monetary donations the Town of Banner Elk has registered with Giving Tuesday’s “Mighty Cause” non-profit online fund that funnels financial donations through Elk River Helping Hands, an already established (501-c-3) charity experienced in accepting, accounting for and distributing donated funds. The community has a goal of $5MM and has received $240,000 as of Sunday. Donations can be made online and will benefit not only Banner Elk residents but those of surrounding affected communities such as Beech and Sugar Mountains, Elk Park as well as across the county. To donate financially go to https://givingtuesday.mightycause.com/event/Supportbannerelk
While fielding questions about where to store yet another 25-30 packages of toilet paper Owens closed by offering “We are incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support that has provided so many canned items and paper goods, and those have been put to very good use” she continued “but we truly have more toilet paper than we can even distribute at this time, and what people really need now is some cash in their hands. We need to be able to listen to someone’s story, commiserate with them as neighbors, offer them a hug, and then say to them ‘go grab some more bottled water, here’s a list of shower facilities that are opening, and, hey, here’s some cash for your immediate needs”. Martha Laura Miller, another resident volunteer working with Elk River Helping Hands adds that referrals for cash needs are made by employers, officials out in the field, by the Banner Elk Police and Fire Department.
Other organizations in the area are also accepting cash donations to help people in their communities. It’s advisable to make sure your cash donations are made carefully and to reliable sources to make sure it goes where needed.
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