LYNCHBURG, Va. – A dozen Liberty University students and supervisors packed up and headed towards Boone, North Carolina on Sunday to help with Helene disaster relief.
“I have a lot of friends in Western North Carolina,” Josiah Gandy, student at Liberty University said. “I’ve not only seen it in the news, but also a lot of my friends have been sending me pictures of the devastation and just the damage from the hurricane, the damage from the flooding. It just absolutely broke my heart.”
The university’s “LU Serve” program is partnering up with Samaritan’s Purse when they get there.
“Just cleaning out in homes or businesses with different people, which can be a really hard task,” LU Serve Partnerships Coordinator Josh Griffin said. “You’re taking out a lot of their personal items. It can be really kind of an emotional time.”
Student Natalia Garcia said she knows what it’s like to be in that situation.
“A hurricane hit my hometown and we had to like move, get rid of a lot of stuff,” Garcia said. “It really affected me, and then the following year another hurricane hit, and so when I found out about the program I wanted to help people because it was great seeing the community help us.”
Students will stay about a week in Western North Carolina. University leaders say they’ll be taking several more disaster relief trips soon to Florida and Georgia, hoping they can make a difference.
“Using our hands and using our hearts to go and serve the community up there,” Gandy said.