Flanders-Northampton Ambulance put out the call for hurricane relief donations, and the community answered – in a very big way.
From wall to wall, the main room of Flanders-Northampton Ambulance Headquarters was filled last night with a sprawling variety of donations from the local community. Volunteers from the ambulance corps sifted through baby diapers, blankets and sheets, placemats, paper goods, soap, pillows, bath towels, pet food – sorting everything into labeled cardboard boxes that quickly piled up on every available surface.
“We had boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff,” said Sandra Tezen, a member of the ambulance corps who helped organize the drive. “It was a lot more than we expected.”
The ambulance corps began collecting donations last Wednesday for victims of Hurricane Harvey, which destroyed tens of thousands of homes and killed at least 70 people in South Texas last week.
“We knew people would want to help, but we didn’t realize it would take off the way it did,” Tezen said.
Flanders-Northampton Ambulance will transport the boxed donations to Island’s Harvest’s main office in Hauppauge, where it will be transported to Texas.
“I really hope we won’t have to, but by the way it looks, we might be doing this again very soon,” Tezen said, referring to Hurricane Irma, which was hurtling toward southern Florida Friday morning.
Photos courtesy of Ron Fisher.
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