UNC students team up with Kinston volunteers in hurricane recovery efforts

KINSTON, N.C. — Inside the Fairfield Recreation Center, Cassandra Canady meanders down one of the four rows of tables that run the entire length of the full-sized gym. 

After 10 years doing bulk distribution with the military and eight as director of her own nonprofit, What’s the Need?, Canady, 55, looks as collected as the Ziploc bags of shaving kits she gently drags her hands over. 

Canady welcomed two UNC students who helped drop off three carload’s worth of supplies Saturday to the community-center-turned-donation-center in Kinston. It was the first time, the college seniors said, that they’d done something like this — in this way and on this scale.

But as Canady has proven through her work: No community or individual is too small to make an important difference.

“When a family comes in who has lost everything, we give them what we have here to get them started for the next couple days,” she said.

Canady’s worked countless hours this week because she’s had to. Hurricane Florence brought Kinston, a town that feels so much smaller than its 21,000 population, severe and persistent rain and wind.

Today, though, she plans to leave work early. She and her family, who all are working in the gym with her, are going to ride through the neighborhoods to try to find another house. 

A week ago, the roof of Canady’s house — which sits up the road from the community center she works at  — fell in. 

“Someone asked me, ‘You’re going through all that, and you’re still out?’” she said. “If I don’t come out here, and I’m the only one running a nonprofit that does community distribution, who else would do it?”

Her daughter’s bedroom had to be closed off immediately, but over the week, the moisture in the house spread. The walls of the house turned green with mold, she said, and the floor of the bathroom is warped. But you’d never be able to tell by meeting her.

“Sometimes we got to sacrifice our own lives to help the lives of others,” she said with a shrug. “But I think by doing it, I still come out pretty good.”

‘Helpless and small’

Senior Alison Hafner laid in bed Saturday morning last week, scrolling through the news and weather reports that monitored Hurricane Florence as it began to make landfall.

Her former roommate is from Morehead City, her grandparents have a house in Bell Haven and she grew up vacationing in Oak Island, but her personal ties to affected areas weren’t what made her feel so “helpless and small.” 

“For a lot of people, that’s their home,” Hafner said. “And I know if the situations were reversed, people would want to help me … And you know, you can donate money, and that’s really great, but I kind of wanted to have more hands-on experience with it.”

By 11 minutes past noon Saturday, Sept. 15, Hafner posted on Facebook that she planned on making a trip down somewhere near the coast to deliver supplies that donation centers are accepting. She added that she’d welcome any help.

The response was “overwhelming,” she said. 

“People that I haven’t really talked to before, that I’m kind of just acquaintances with said, ‘Hey, I have this stuff left over, like bottles of water and canned food,’” Hafner said. “A lot of people cleaned out their closets and gave me clothing.”

By the next weekend, Hafner — as well as the people who wanted to help her effort — organized and transported three sedans filled to the brim to Kinston, a two-hour drive southeast of Chapel Hill. She said she received $150 in monetary donations as well and used the money to purchase cleaning supplies and other items to donate. 

“I think it’s really beautiful that an individual can do this, but I think that if there’s even a little bit of support, it just makes it more smooth,” said Savannah Patterson, a volunteer that accompanied Hafner. “I mean, organizations all start on an individual level.”

After the students’ donations were stored and final arrangements were made, Ronnie Canady, Cassandra’s husband, stopped in his tracks and looked up at the rim that hung on the other side of the recreation center. 

Unlike his wife, who is from New Haven, Conn., Ronnie Canady grew up in Kinston. In fact, he played basketball in the very gym they were working in. 

“As far as the community helping distribution for the floods, this is the first time this has ever been done, and to me, that’s part of history,” he said.  “If you grow up in life and you don’t ever do (anything) for the community, to me, you lost part of life ... I feel like everything is going to take care of everything, as long as I'm doing this right."

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