On Friday, October 4th at 2pm, a caravan of vehicles loaded with donated supplies for those affected by the floods, will depart from East Ridge City Hall.
The caravan will be joined by the Collegedale Police for an escort to The Commons in Collegedale. The Commons has been transformed into the central collection site for Collegedale’s Disaster Relief Operations.
The Commons is continuing to accept donations and will remain open from 7am to 7pm until Saturday night, October 5th. Volunteers are loading donations onto trucks that are making numerous trips to disaster areas in Upper East Tennessee.
Those wonderful volunteers are also delivering donations to the Collegedale Airport and helping to load supplies onto a PC-12 aircraft from Crystal Air. The aircraft made three flights Wednesday, two flights are departing Thursday, and more are scheduled throughout the week to North Carolina.
“Each flight is delivering 2,600 pounds of relief to those in need,” said Collegedale City Manager Wayon Hines.
Early Wednesday morning, the pilots in Collegedale learned of an airfield in Avery County that was farther into the devastated area and diverted all of their flights to land there. Hines said the Avery airfield is closer to the people with the greatest need and 100% of the relief is able to be delivered into the mountains very quickly.
The overwhelming support of donations has been tremendous, leading the City of East Ridge to request assistance from the public to help organize, sort, and pack donations in order to transport all the supplies to Collegedale on Friday.
Volunteers are asked to meet at East Ridge Community Center at 1515 Tombras Avenue beginning at 12pm on Friday, October 4th.
The City of Collegedale and the City of East Ridge greatly appreciate the continued efforts and support as they gather supplies for the victims and families impacted by Hurricane Helene.
For more information about items needed for the disaster relief efforts, go to the Facebook pages for the City of Collegedale or the City of East Ridge.