COLUMBUS — Volunteers with the Civilian Crisis Response Team loaded up an aircraft to fly supplies to North Carolina.
According to the Associated Press, Hurricane Helene is responsible for at least 121 deaths across Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. It is the first time the non-profit has asked for a volunteer pilot. They put a call on social media and had 75 pilots respond.
"For them to take their time, their money, their aircraft, and do this. It was unexpected the amount of overwhelming response we've had,” J.R. Grounds, the Director of the Civilian Crisis Response Team, said.
One of those volunteer pilots is John Freas. He says he grew up flying. He heard about the need on Facebook and knew he wanted to step up and help.
"We are all in this together,” Freas said. “If somebody needs help, we need to step in and give them a hand. And that comes around, right? If we need help, hopefully someone will feel the same way for us."
Freas lives near Columbus, Indiana, which will act as the hub of the Civilian Crisis Response Teams flight activities. They say since so many volunteered planes and time, they will fly from other parts of the state, too.
RELATED | Supplies, emergency workers rushed to North Carolina while Florida digs out from Helene's damage
"It started out as us just taking some stuff from Columbus down to North Carolina to resupply,” Grounds said. “Now, it has turned into a kind of multi-airport operation. This is still going to be our main hub, but we've got pilots going to different airports now."
As for why these volunteers do what they do? They hope to bring people together when many feel our country is divided.
"At a very fundamental level, we all want the same thing,” Freas said. “We want to live a good life, we want to be happy, we want to be free, we want to have a better opportunity for our kids than we had for ourselves. The best way we can do that is not to fight with each other. It's to come together to find a solution. In this case, it happens to be helping people out who need a hand."
The Civilian Crisis Response Team works with local emergency responders to determine the need before heading to those hardest hit areas.
READ MORE | Death toll rises from Helene while supplies are rushed to North Carolina (wrtv.com)
Flight operations will continue throughout the week. To learn more about the organization, click here.
