Jason Funk bringing Hurricane relief from Shenandoah Country to the people in NC

After collecting over 91 pallets of crucial items needed for survivors of Hurricane Helenein SW Virginia and North Carolina, Jason Funk of Patton's Movers has arrived, and he tells us what he's encountering in storm struck NC this morning!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason Funk, how are you pound It's Chris and Laurie.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Chris, Laurie, how are you guys?

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Well, we're doing great, but we want to know how
you are and how things are in North Carolina. Jason
is delivering right now all of the goods that everyone
donated off over all this time. Jason, tell us, tell
us what's going on.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
We are here in Banner Elk. We got redirected to
Banner Elk, North Carolina as soon as we got here
last night. They weren't expecting as much product as we had.
They just did not have the volunteers.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
So I'm sure they were just overwhelmed when they saw
all the trunks.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Absolutely so. One of the local business owners, he has
an Airbnb here, put us all up bram Charge. The
hospitality here has just been amazing, Chris. The scene down here,
it's a gorgeous town, but the devastation is just it's heartbreaking.

(00:57):
There's no running water in the town anywhere. They do
have electricity, but there's still roads washed out. You see
construction and debris removal all over the place. But everyone
here is in very high spirits. Everyone's tired, but everyone
is in very very good spirits, and I just cannot

(01:18):
get over the hospitality that we've had as soon as
we got into town.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
It's good to know there are good people everywhere and
even though the worst has happened to them, they're still
good people.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah. I was talking to one of the lieutenants from
the local police department. You actually had his house wash
away last week. He was very, very humble, and he
was like, the house can be replaced. He was like,
my family's safe, We're going to be okay. And just
the optimism that everyone has right now. Everyone is just

(01:51):
so positive. Their whole lives have been whipped upside down
and they are just still so positive about everything.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
It's hard to imagine that, right you think about all
they've lost, and how could you stay positive. I'm really
glad to hear that. I really am. So you've got
how many trucks did you end up bringing.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
It was a total of ten and a half trucks
that we got down here.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
And you said that because you texted me at the
end of the day after the big push at Silenburger
Hardware and you said there were ninety one palettes and
I thought maybe he meant nineteen.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
No, it was ninety one.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, it really is. I
know Enterprise ended up donating the use of some trucks
as well, because you just had so much stuff right right.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
So I want to give a shout out to Enterprise.
They actually came through and donated additional trucks for us
to get down here. And then I also reached out
to a couple of my peers. They brought trucks and
we still have eighteen pals up in our warehouse, so
we just had no way to get down here.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Oh my gosh. So what is the plan for the
rest of the day. You're going to unload here? Are
you going to go any further or is this where
the like your final stop?

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Or so we're unloading five trucks here in Banner l
And then James Bailey with Brady bransh I'll get you
moving out of Annapolis, Maryland and down here as well.
We're going to transfer two or three trucks for him
to take up the Spruce Time. So spruce Time was
heavily hit. They just got the roads opened yesterday. So

(03:18):
James is going to take two truckloads up to Spruce Pine,
North Carolina, we're going to get ready and get all
this stuff unloaded.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Man, man, gosh, you have to know everyone in Shenandoah
Countries watching this, watching you do this, and just so
proud that you're doing it. And again, I want to
go back to this. It comes back to one guy
sitting on his couch seeing this happen and going what
can I do? And out of that, look at this
amazing group effort from all the folks in Shenandoah Country.

(03:49):
And as you've just heard, they're so grateful and so
optimistic there, and I know it had to be a
bright spot in what has been a very bad week
for them.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Right. It really puts things in perspective, you know, because
I was tired, like I was, I was tired, and
then once I got down here, it's like it's all
of my fatigue, all of my team fatigued being tired,
it all went away.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Wow, awesome. Well listen, God bless you guys for doing it.
We're not gonna hold you up because we know you're
about to do some transferring into unloading. So thank you
for taking the time to talk with us and update
everybody here in Shenandoah Country. God bless you. Have a
safe trip back, and please please tell everyone there that
everyone here in Shenandoah Country has been thinking about them
and loves them and is giving them a great big

(04:35):
hug right now.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Absolutely, Chris, I appreciate all your support with everything, and
we couldn't have done this without everybody's efforts, so thank you.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
It was a group effort, but thank you for spearheading it.
You guys rock. Have a good day, man. We love you,
love you.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Got to blaye blah Bye.