SALT LAKE CITY — Utahns do not have to live through a hurricane to know how devastating one can be.
They just need to know there are people who are hurting as the result of one to want to help ease their burden.
If local grocers who are a part of the Associated Food Stores doubted this was the case, they were set straight during an October fundraiser to assist the families hurt by Hurricane Helene. Patrons from 53 stores donated a total of $73,825.19 in one month.
“We have a very giving state. Utahns have a heart to help people whose lives have been devastated,” said Sarah Pettit from Associated Food Stores. “Whenever we see a need, we want to help. And for this effort our wonderful guests wanted to help.”
At the end of September of this year, Hurricane Helene hit what is referred to as the “Big Bend” region of North Florida. At its peak, the Hurricane gained a strength of a Category 4 storm and traveled north, eventually impacting parts of North Carolina’s Black Mountains and Southwest Virginia. In total, parts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee were impacted by Hurricane Helene.
Helene was the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according to news reports at the time. As a whole, communities also suffered a total of more than $87 billion in damages.
Many communities were completely destroyed.
When Jonathan Badger, an independent Associated grocer, spoke with a peer in Virginia, he heard firsthand about the destruction left behind by Helene. His peer mentioned the community would need help to get back on its feet and from that moment, the local fundraiser was born.
Nine Associated banner grocery stores — Lee’s Market, Macey’s, Dan’s, Dick’s Market, Lin’s Market, Fresh Market, Peterson’s Market, D9 Grocery, and Soleberg’s Market — asked customers who arrived at the cashiers’ stands if they wanted to give to the efforts to help people who were hit by Hurricane Helene.
The answer was a resounding “yes.”
The money raised from 53 stores was given to the United Way of Southwest Virginia, the closest agency still standing and operating in the area and also in the community where the original contact was made between Badger and his peer.
“These dollars were used to get the basic necessities for people — diapers, toilet paper, things like that,” Pettit said. “The funds were also used for repair and recovery efforts. So, donors can know that those dollars have already been used to help people.”
The need will continue to be great due to Hurricane Helene. Universities in the Black Mountains of North Carolina suffered severe damage, while schools and many businesses were completely destroyed, especially in Southwest Virginia.
Also, between 75% to 95% of residents in North Carolina and Southwest Virginia did not have insurance that protected homes in case of hurricanes, according to the Insurance Insurance Information Institution. Those are the funds typically used to rebuild after a storm.
In total, more than 200 people lost their lives as a result of the hurricane due to flooding, collapsing homes and car crashes during tornados that formed after the storm.
“We want to show our gratitude to our wonderful guests for thinking about other people,” Pettit said. “They always give when they can … they want to help ease the burden. So, I don’t think this fundraiser will mean people won’t give again if someone is in need.”
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
