Project Sunshine Bags for Seniors in Need

Shared From Instagram Post of Jason Cook Photography:

"I’ve witnessed a lot in my career, but the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Swannanoa, North Carolina is one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen. Western N.C. is a climate change crime scene perpetrated by fossil fuel companies who warmed our atmosphere and lied about it for decades.

Entire neighborhoods were washed away. Only splinters and deep mud slicks remained. Floodwaters tossed cars into the river, obliterated bridges, and left craters reminiscent of ones we’ve seen left by Israel’s bombs in Gaza. Blackhawk helicopters thumped overhead. Cell phones screamed with emergency alerts. A group of linemen ate lunch next to a sinkhole. The winding rural routes smelled like pine from all the snapped and uprooted trees. Spray paint Xs marked cars and homes were people were rescued, and where people died. Everywhere, individual horrors pooled into a larger nightmare.

But Appalachia did what Appalachia does best: it came together, strangers and kin, to save itself. Justice Treadway helped his friend Bonnie O’Neill search for her belongings in her parent’s destroyed trailer. Sherrie Wheeler reunited with her niece, Cynthia Cragg, by jumping into her arms and kissing her cheek. Nine-year-old David McDevitt unloaded cases of water from the Red Cross with his little red radio flyer wagon at his local church. Cindi Gardner, her husband Lee and their grandchildren from Durham drove up in three 18-wheelers full of supplies. Reed Sharlow, 11, played behind the drivers seat of his grandfathers UNC semi. National Guard Sergeant Rachel Bigbee helped unload their pallets, which locals sorted into kits in a middle school parking lot. Churches and restaurants gave away hot meals.

Folks keep asking what they can do and there’s so much immediate need: donate money and supplies, support local mutual aid efforts, and volunteer to clean up when the time is right.

The most important thing to do is to not give in to despair. We have so many climate solutions available
from natural and technological ways to mitigate and adapt, to renewable energy like solar that is increasingly cheap and, when disaster strikes, is more likely to keep the power on.