Janine Kimm passes bags of donated items to James King as they worked at the Pendleton American Legion Post 117 to gather necessities for people affected by the hurricanes in the South.
Sue Hughes | For The Times-Post
James and Ellen King led an effort to gather necessities for people affected by the hurricanes in the South.
Sue Hughes | For The Times-Post
The trailer with donations.
Sue Hughes | For The Times-Post
Ellen King and a cart of donations headed south to help with hurricane relief.
Sue Hughes | For The Times-Post
Bobby Parry, Ellen King, James King and Neal Mira were among those at Pendleton American Legion Post 117 who helped get donations ready to haul south to contribute to hurricane relief.
Sue Hughes | For The Times-Post
By Sue Hughes | For The Times-Post
PENDLETON — When Pendleton resident Ellen King saw the devastation the recent hurricanes caused in the South, she knew she had to do something.
Ellen and her husband, James, were already planning to visit their daughter in North Carolina. So, they decided to take a load of supplies with them.
“Everyone feels so helpless,” she said.
The Kings, both military veterans — he 30 years in the Marines and Air Force, she four years in the Air Force — are members of Pendleton American Legion.
When they told the other members what they had planned, they didn’t expect the response they got.
Word spread quickly, and donations began showing up.
Last week, on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, the Kings — with the help of volunteers — loaded up their trailer and truck.
“We are taking the supplies to the racetrack in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, where it will be distributed,” James said. “I did this in the Air Force, taking supplies to Sri Lanka, India and Thailand when they had a tsunami.”
While the trailer was being loaded, Janine Kimm brought some more food.
“If you see the pictures, you know how horrible it is,” Kimm said. “When you see that you realize how lucky you are.”
Robin Norris, a volunteer at the Legion, said, “We got donations every day this week.
“Some of the members who couldn’t get to the store gave me money to go buy things for them.”
Several organizations, such as AMVETS, businesses and the town itself, also contributed.
“We got a huge donation of animal food and supplies from Scott Anderson at Seedy Sally’s,” Ellen said.
“One woman brought boxes of brand-new clothes,”James added.
The truck left Pendleton at noon Oct. 10.
The Kings said they thought it would take about 13 hours to get to Wilkesboro.
Volunteer Rhonda Schroder summed it up, “The people of Pendleton are amazing.”
Dave Skalon, service officer at the Legion, said “the community stepped up in a big way.
“We were worried that we weren’t going to get enough to warrant the trailer,” Skalon said, and in the end they ended up overloading it.
“They still managed to pull it,” he said.
The Legion has about 50 cases of bottled water left because it prioritized food when packing the trailer.
“We’re searching for a transport to get it down there,” he said, noting that the needs in the storm affected areas are huge and long-term.