Agway, local donors aid flood victims – with two and four legs
Loading relief supplies was a group effort Friday morning outside the Agway store in Eighty Four.
Bob Hutton, co-owner of SydMor Stables in Eighty Four, and Shannon Geiser of Fallowfield Township stack supplies for the long trip.
Some of the items collected in a local relief effort led by Cindy Fox of Washington and Linda Adkins of L.A. Sweets await packing Thursday for transport to areas affected by Hurricane Harvey.
Morgan Hutton, 11, of Eighty Four, front, helped with the heavy lifting of relief supplies.
It was 50,000 pounds and counting Friday morning.
Agway, SydMor Stables and local community members spearheaded a drive to collect relief supplies for residents of storm-ravaged Houston. And, oh, did they collect. As of 8 a.m., an estimated 25 tons of donated goods had been packed for transport 1,200 miles away to Texas.
“This is beyond what we anticipated,” said Bob Hutton, co-owner of SydMor Stables in Eighty Four and a prime organizer of this outreach. He was among two dozen people – men, women and children – who gathered at the Eighty Four Agway store to load supplies onto trucks and trailers. Several store employees helped with the heavy lifting.
Donations included toiletries, first aid and cleaning items, diapers, animal feed, canned foods, box fans, carpentry supplies and bleach. They will be used to aid Houston-area residents devastated by Hurricane Harvey, then hit by the downgraded Tropical Storm Harvey. At least 40 people have died, 87,000 homes have been damaged and 7,000 residences destroyed in Texas.
Volunteers involved with the Agway outreach planned to start their journey around midnight Friday, traveling in a convoy of two recreation vehicles and three pickup trucks lugging 10 supply-filled trailers. The journey was to last 25 hours, ending at a base camp in Louisiana, from which they would proceed to Houston with their deliveries.
“We have two sets of drivers,” said Harry Shaffer, a brawny Scenery Hill resident who looks as if he could personally pull a trailer. He was driving one of the RVs.
Organizers began collecting items Monday and filled seven trailers in four days. “We’ll have three more (Friday),” Hutton said. He was accompanied by his wife, Lynn, and their preteen daughters, Sydney and Morgan – the Syd and Mor in SydMor, a nearby horse farm with 54 horses and an equestrian center.
Four-legged creatures weren’t getting short shrift with Agway and the Suttons involved.
More donations were coming in Friday morning, credit card numbers flowing through the Agway phone lines at 724-222-0600.
“Customers here have been very generous,” said Rose Donahue, an Agway cashier from Prosperity. She said her store likewise has contributed, providing “feed, needles and syringes for animals, gloves, cat and dog food, vet supplies …”
Public response has been strong and probably will continue to be, which is why Frank Brownlee entered the fray Friday morning. Bob Hutton said he received a call from the president of Avella-based Frank Brownlee Trucking, saying his company would park a tractor-trailer at Agway over the next several days to accommodate an overflow of donated supplies. The firm would take the items to Houston the middle of next week.
“The response we’ve had has been phenomenal. It’s great to live in a community like this,” said Beckie Yohe, a volunteer from Monongahela.
She said a local group, led by Paul Kennedy and his daughter, Brianna Guarino, provided relief to flood-afflicted areas of Louisiana a year ago.
Volunteer fire departments from Chartiers Township and Houston also are joining the relief effort – a sort of Houston helping Houston. Those two units are partnering with Canonsburg EMS to fill a tractor-trailer with supplies Sept. 24. Items also may be dropped off at the fire halls from 6 to 9 p.m. Mondays, starting Labor Day, and during Chartiers’ annual open house and Public Safety Day from noon to 4 p.m. Sept. 10.
Dropoffs may be scheduled by calling the Chartiers company (2450 W. Pike St., 724-745-9380) or the Houston department (12 W. McNutt St., 724-746-3553).
Also, four Washington County residents are among 39 Red Cross staffers or volunteers from Western Pennsylvania who are assisting in the relief effort. Claysville’s Cindy Chmel (sheltering) is in Texas along with West Alexander’s Betty Hicks (logistics) and Fred Hicks (facilities). Catherine Morgan of Canonsburg (sheltering) is in Louisiana.