North Buncombe High School students lead recovery efforts for NC farmers post-Hurricane Helene

Farmers in western North Carolina are still struggling to rebuild four months after Hurricane Helene hit the region. 

The storm devastated crops, equipment and land. Meanwhile, state and federal aid is still slow to arrive.

Students at North Buncombe High School in the Future Farmer’s of America (FFA) program have stepped up to help  provide aid over the past few months.

“It’s honestly mind blowing. Right at the beginning, there were so many donations sites, so many pickups that were extremely helpful,” said Mylee Ponder, the Co-President of North Buncombe FFA. “But now, as we’re moving into the warmer months, I feel like people have not forgotten, but there is less support.”

To date, they have turned their shop class into a grocery store and greenhouse into a shopping center, distributed grants and delivered care kits to nursing homes.

This past week, they distributed barbed wire and fence posts to local farms still in need of fencing repairs.

“The power is on. We have water back in the city. We have our fast food open,” Ponder said. “But there are people in the rural areas that are still living in tents, and people that still go to this high school that are still without a home, and I feel like that’s just very important to keep in mind.”

Despite their own families being impacted by the storm, these students are helping in the recovery effort.

“It was so close to home that we had students in our district, in our high school that were affected,” Ponder added. “When you drive down the road and you see all of the disaster – and then you have people coming from Maryland to help us and Virginia to help us – it’s like, how could you not take advantage of this?”

The storm caused an estimated $4.9 billion in agricultural losses, wiping out crops, livestock feed and infrastructure.

In the midst of financial uncertainty and struggling to rebuild, farmers face difficult decisions about whether to continue ahead of spring planting.

Ponders said support and deliveries from other states have made a difference, allowing them to help distribute and reach more people. 

“So we had someone that does routine hay deliveries here, and he’s from West Virginia, and he was just coming up here for a hay delivery and saw all the destruction,” she said. “And he has now done bi-monthly drop offs in semi-trucks up here for us, and it’s mainly loaded with farming supplies, fencing supplies, feed for animals. And I actually work at a local feed store, and they are part of our FFA alumni here at North Buncombe, and so that connection has been really, really crucial to getting supplies out there for farmers and people who lost everything.”

The American Relief Act, signed into law in late December, includes $21 billion for disaster assistance to farmers, but it’s not clear how much will go to North Carolina. 

This student-led organization hopes to inspire others to serve their communities. 

“It’s been insanely humbling to do everything that we’ve been doing,” Ponder said. “It’s been rewarding in the fact that I feel that I’m making steps to become the people that have helped us so much.

“I’m  just very thankful to be a part of a community that is western North Carolina and just please keep everyone here in thoughts and prayers.”

Here’s a look at the additional projects they’ve accomplished with other FFA members from across North Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland and Georgia.

• Walhalla FFA in South Carolina: Delivering truckloads of supplies and North Buncombe FFA passing them out to Reems Creek families 
• Boonsboro FFA in Maryland: Donating an estimated $20,000 in fencing supplies that the North Buncombe FFA chapter distributed to nearly 50 local family farms
• Creating 100 toiletry kits for a local nursing home 
• Partnering with a livestock show to bring in two 53′ box trailers of supplies to their community
• Turning their school’s greenhouse into a supply center where families could replace everything from appliances and silverware to toilet paper and clothes
• Transforming the school’s ag mechanics classroom into a grocery store and providing meals before Winter Break 
• Dispersing $15,000 in grants to 12 families in a five-county region thanks to donations from FFA alumni and the Farm Bureau (recipients included dairy farmers, beef cattle producers, a handyman in need of new tools and families who couldn’t pay their rent or car insurance)