HURRICANE MATTHEW: Local church provides hot meal

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on October 12, 2016 9:59 AM

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The community outreach has begun after Hurricane Matthew carved a swath of catastrophic damage -- perhaps the worst ever witnessed in Wayne County this past weekend.

Organizations are starting to help their neighbors affected by the devastating flooding that caused them to leave their homes and lose all of their belongings.

Mount Olive First Pentecostal Church cooked a spaghetti dinner for those in the Carver Heights district in Mount Olive on Tuesday. Spring Creek athletics director Heath Whitfield helped served hot meals to displaced families from a mobile kitchen.

Workers from Carolina Power & Light (CPL) and Tri-County (Electric) also stopped by for a hearty dinner.

"They've been working really hard to get the power lines back up," said Whitfield.

Whitfield said that some of students from the Seven Springs area, which experienced significant flooding, did have some damage to their homes. He didn't know if any were evacuated.

"As far as I know, they are OK. I asked all of the coaches to check on our players and let me know if there is anything I can do," he said.

Will Collins, who is director of the Greater Neuse River Fellowship of Christian Athletes, has stayed in contact and offered his assistance to local coaches and administrators from the high schools and middle schools within the county.

The GNRFCA stretches to Greene and Lenoir counties.

In southern Wayne County, Southern Wayne athletes helped area residents remove debris from their yards left over from the hurricane. According to SW athletics director David Lee, some of those athletes remain without power and water.

Debris covered parts of the school's campus and power lines were down across the road. The doors were blown off a storage shed, but were put back in place. The school has a flat roof, but it isn't known if any of the classrooms sustained any water damage.

In an email to Lee, an SW staff member who lives in Grantham expressed her gratitude.

The person lauded current and former SW students, including those in emergency service management, who have graciously and selflessly helped their fellow community members in a time of need.

"A tragedy like this brings the community together and that's the best thing you could possibly have," Lee said. "It's like a silver lining in the cloud despite all the devastation that's been caused down here."