Students bring disaster relief to hurricane-ravaged communities
On an unusually cold day in October, a team of Liberty students woke up early and piled into vans outside a small church where they had slept the night before. They wove their way through the high hills near Boone, N.C., spotting the first snowflakes of the season, and arrived in a rural neighborhood that had suffered severe flooding from Hurricane Helene a few weeks prior. Their assignment: clean debris from an elderly woman’s house that had been rocked by the storm.
As they stepped inside the structure, they noticed the home had been mostly gutted by volunteers before them, barely resembling a home. The walls were reduced to studs. No appliances in the kitchen, no furniture in the living room. Just a damp smell that permeated the space. The students put on gloves and grabbed shovels, hammers, and trash bags and went to work.
Liberty students cleaned debris from a woman’s house near Boone, N.C.
They were far from the comforts of campus, but these student volunteers, part of Liberty’s LU Serve Now initiative, had signed up to trade their laptops for tools so they could faithfully serve hurting families and share the love of Christ. With smiles on their faces, they carted off debris, removed nails, sprayed areas for mold, and swept floors, because they understood the important role they were playing in restoring hope to this community.
After finishing the work, the students assisted a neighbor by carting away mold-covered items from his basement, which had been completely submerged by the floodwaters.
Hurricane Helene’s destruction displaced more than 375,000 households across the South, leaving many communities devastated and in need of support. Since the tragedy, Liberty University has sent multiple disaster relief teams to North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, collected donations, and shipped supplies to areas in need.
Boone, N.C.
The team in Boone was the first team to deploy from Liberty after Hurricane Helene. From Oct. 13-19, the eight students and two team leaders joined Samaritan’s Purse volunteers at different job sites each day. Although they woke up each morning not knowing where they would go or what their exact tasks would be that day, the students knew it was a chance to minister to families.
“Serving is a great way to give back to the community,” said sophomore Yanci Sanchez. “Seeing all the hurt that’s been caused through these natural disasters, it’s a great way for us to serve one another and be able to share the Gospel as well. Having your heart ready to serve and being able to give up that time is really important. I prayed about it to see if this is what God really wanted me to do, and thankfully He gave me the opportunity. I worked ahead (on classwork), tried to communicate with my professors as well, and here I am.”
On Oct. 9, a week before the team left campus, Liberty President Dondi E. Costin joined senior Caleb Pallekonda, an LU Serve Now volunteer, for an ABC News interview on “GMA3” about Liberty’s plan to send disaster relief teams.
Costin announced that the university set up a giving portal to fund supplies and send teams and would match up to $1 million raised.
On Oct. 20, Liberty deployed two more teams to Valdosta, Ga., and Perry, Fla., for six days of service and sent a trailer with 22 pallets of bottled water to Valdosta. On Oct. 24, another team was sent to Boone for a one-day cleanup blitz. From Nov. 11-15, a team partnered with Operation Blessing in Asheville, N.C., where they assisted with cleanup initiatives and food distribution. Over Winter Break, the week before the spring semester started, two more teams aided in hurricane relief in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Fla. (with Samaritan’s Purse) and in Asheville (with Operation Blessing).
Asheville, N.C.
Perry, Fla.
Liberty has a longstanding reputation for community service, consistently partnering with humanitarian aid organizations during times of need. Teams have been deployed to Poland and Romania to assist Ukrainian refugees; to Lahaina, in Maui, Hawaii, to sift through ashes and build temporary housing after wildfires devastated the island; to Florida for cleanup after Hurricanes Idalia and Ian; to Texas after Hurricane Beryl; and to Kentucky for flooding and tornado cleanup.
LU Serve Now provides multiple opportunities for students to respond to natural disasters alongside partner organizations that embrace and support Liberty’s mission and purpose.
Aviation students fly hurricane relief aid to cut-off cities
Although aeronautics senior James Quarberg’s hometown of Johnson City, Tenn., was not severely impacted by Hurricane Helene, he witnessed the devastation of massive flooding just miles away. When he returned to Liberty after a visit home, Quarberg and fellow students and pilots Ty Burch, Ethan Seeler, Jacob Fordyce, Brian Hernandez, and Stephen Dayton devised a plan to support towns and neighborhoods in hard-to-reach areas. They partnered with nonprofits Gleaning For The World and Northeast Tennessee Disaster Relief Center to provide supplies for those in need.
Using private aircraft, the students flew three planes, carrying 1,500 pounds of supplies from Gleaning For The World and other donations of food, clothes, cleaning items, blankets, cots, feminine products, diapers, and more, from Lynchburg and Brookneal, Va., to Tennessee and North Carolina in early October. They paid for the fuel out of pocket at a cost of over $1,000 per plane each day. They continued to make more flights throughout the week.
“It’s just been a very interesting experience to see how God works in mysterious ways, and how He is providing for all of us,” Quarberg said. “He gave us pilots, He gave us strength, courage, all of that. It’s something that we’re all very grateful for.”
