ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Amy Cantrell lives in Swannanoa, one of Hurricane Helene’s hardest-hit areas. She’s seen the death and destruction, firsthand, in her own neighborhood. She’s been working since the storm hit to help those most affected.

“This is where we begin to support communities that are really suffering right now,” Cantrell said.

She’s also the co-director of BeLoved Asheville. 

She said her team of volunteers is able to offer necessities to 15,000 people a day thanks to donations coming in from across the country. They are prioritizing the people who are often forgotten. 

"Going into our legacy neighborhoods, our African American neighborhoods that have been here for a long time, making sure that they had resources," she said. "Our mobile home communities, where a large percentage of our Latino populations live. Many of them are the victims of this. They were by rivers in mobile homes."

While in recovery mode, she has to prepare for temperatures to drop.

“One of the things you’ll see is lots of blankets. We’re facing a critical time in this crisis, which is winter,” she said. “So we have lots of people without adequate shelter. Many of the disaster shelters are starting to close.”

They’re delivering essentials — like clothes, food and heaters — offering home repairs and even providing RVs for people to sleep in.

“We are moving quickly to help re-home victims of this hurricane through our BeLoved Village project and other housing that we will acquire for more permanent housing,” she said.

BeLoved Village — a project years in the making — is still slated to open by the end of the year, and Cantrell is determined to meet her end-of-year deadline even as she processes what she has seen in the aftermath of the storm.

“Very, very lucky. We had neighbors whose house slid off the mountain in a mudslide. They didn’t survive,” she said. “We cut our way with neighbors down to the river. We saw many that didn’t survive. We saw much death.”

“We were there when swift water was there that night,” she said. “There were families clinging to trees and crying for help.”

That experience is why Cantrell and co-director Poncho Bermejo are working so hard to help all those who need it.

“We work like 18 hours a day, because it’s personal. This is family,” Bermejo said.

He also saw his neighbors clinging to whatever they could during the storm and tried to help as many as he could. He said the overwhelming amount of nationwide support gives him the fuel to keep going.

“This is why I can wake up. I don’t need coffee. This is my coffee,” he said. “Seeing these people coming from all these places and giving all this love.”

Cantrell said they need money to help repair homes and re-home people displaced by Helene. You can make a donation at www.belovedasheville.com.