Photos by Henry Thomas
Non-profit Valley Strong Disaster Relief (VSDR) is shifting its focus toward clean up and repair in Western North Carolina after closing their supply distribution site in March.
Silverados, a dive bar and former music venue based in Black Mountain, provided aid to local communities for over five months following the effects of Hurricane Helene
Co-founder of VSDR Ian Monley was initially out of town at an antique festival when Helene reached the area.
“At first, there was no cell phone signal, so I couldn’t get a hold of my wife or kids,” Monley said. “And eventually she got a hold of me and said they were okay, but there [were] no roads in or out.”
Monley decided to pick up supplies to bring back to the community, including 355 gallon drums of gas, 40 cases of water and all the food and supplies his truck could hold.
Monley found his way back to Black Mountain by mapping out a route on backroads. Once he returned, Monley and his fiancée Jenalee Tipton distributed supplies to their friends and family. Then the idea for a distribution site took form.
“We had some extra [supplies] so we decided to set up right on the road in front of Silverados, and then it kind of just snowballed from there,” Monley said.
VSDR was founded shortly after, publicizing on social media as early as Oct. 13. In addition to Monley and Tipton, VSDR was founded by Silverados owners Cory and Christen Short, and local business owners Jason and Amy Ward.
The music stage at Silverados’ once hosted upwards of 3,000 people. When the distribution site was open it was converted to a shelter for rows of supplies for the caravan of vehicles that moved families through the drive-thru-style line.
Chattanooga, Tenn., Richard “Richie” Alexander served as the site’s manager and volunteer coordinator, living on-site in an RV from Oct. 7 until it closed.
Just over a week before the distribution hub’s closure, Alexander said, 120-180 vehicles a day were coming by for supplies.
Alexander said the site served nearly twice that many cars daily when VSDR first started counting, after about a month of running the distribution hub. A few months after the disaster, numbers peaked during VSDR’s five-day Christmas drive.
During the drive, VSDR donated gift-wrapped toys that parents could pick up at no cost. Alexander estimated that the drive served around 6,500 kids during the holiday season.
“We had the cars lined up a mile that way and a mile that way,” Alexander said, gesturing to N.C. 70 which runs in front of the site. “We served 650 cars in one day.”
To help spread the word about available supplies and volunteer needs, VSDR relied on its robust social network, amassing about 14,000 Facebook followers in the matter of six months. VSDR routinely used its online presence to communicate with the surrounding community and share donation resources.
Part of VSDR’s reach includes volunteers, like Alexander, who traveled long distances to aid the cause. VSDR has also garnered the support of public figures, such as Ward, who is a social media influencer. Some of his internet publicity of the event even recruited volunteers.
Kay McClure, a volunteer from Mount Holly, initially came to the site to meet Ward, and knew she wanted to come back.
McClure, along with her best friend Wendy Brignull, drove nearly 3 and a half hours to and from the distribution site on every weekend. The two transitioned to volunteering with VSDR after helping set up a medical clinic with Savage Freedoms, another organization providing hurricane relief in Western North Carolina.
“We shifted here because our needs were not there anymore at that point,” Brignull said. “So we’ve been here ever since.”
For 23 weekends, McClure and Brignull worked “on-stage” preparing hygiene bags — with contents ranging from diapers to over the counter medications. In addition, they organize the donation supplies on-stage, and help distribute them to the line of cars that come through the site.
Alexander said that other volunteers came from every state in the country and from countries like Belgium, Canada and the United Kingdom. At one point, the Silverados team consisted of almost 50 volunteers.
The group shrunk in its last few weeks when the site stopped asking for donations in anticipation of the reopening of Silverados as a bar and as needs began to wane.
Cory said that Silverados officially opened back up on March 14, but will no longer host live music events at their concert venue. On March 19, the bar posted an announcement, citing challenges posed by Hurricane Helene for the business deciding to suspend all planned music events.
For volunteers like Alexander, the distribution site’s closure meant the first time returning home after living on-site for five months. However, according to Alexander, this is not the end of his volunteering journey.
“My wife and I, this was our first volunteer [initiative],” Alexander said. “And we do know that this is what we’ll do the rest of our life.”
