Rotary Club of Hilton Head Island organizes caravan of hurricane relief for Louisiana
When Ron and Sharon Farsetti and Bruce and Lynn Pitkin set out Sept. 3 for Louisiana from Hilton Head, it wasn’t for any ordinary road trip.
The couples and the Farsetti’s service dog, Nikko, were towing U-Haul trucks filled with hurricane relief supplies for areas of Louisiana that had been hit hardest by Hurricane Ida, said the Hilton Head Island Rotary Club, a local service organization.
The storm hit Louisiana Aug. 30,leaving over a million people without electricity. As of Sept. 9, Reuters reported Thursday at least 26 people had died, some from excessive heat and carbon monoxide poisoning.
“Without any air or electricity, it is blistering hot,” New Orleans Rotary Club President Penny Menge said in a video submitted to the Island Packet.
Seeing the devastation, Farsetti began coordinating with Louisiana rotary clubs Aug. 30, Joan Simpson Player, public image director for the Hilton Head Rotary Club, said in a press release.
“Ron knew early on that that sending money would not get them the supplies they needed because they would not be available in the New Orleans area,” Player said.
The Hilton Head Island Rotary Club gathered donations from the Hilton Head Island Fire Rescue, members of First Presbyterian Church of Hilton Head Island, neighbors on a Hilton Head NextDoor page and Curry Printing.
They then set off for Pensacola, Florida, to meet with other rotary club members. There, they received two other vehicles filled with supplies and a 10-foot trailer carrying over 600 gallons of water and a tractor-trailer with 500 sheets of plywood, according to the press release.
The six vehicles formed a caravan as they made their way to LaPlace, St. Charles and Jefferson Parish, the press release said. The rotary club caravan arrived in Louisiana around noon Sept. 4 according to the press release, and the team began working to distribute $79,000 worth of supplies.
Distribution was coordinated by Menge with other rotary clubs in the area and Homeland Security.
Items donated
45 generators
250 AA battery-operated fans
2,600 AA batteries
35 extension cords
11,900 diapers
2,000 plastic round head roofing nails
10 pallets (50 sheets each) OSB roofing plywood on a flat-bed tractor-trailer
20,000 baby wipes
6,000 servings of baby formula
240 1-gallon cans of dried food (with no expiration date)
Dog food
Cat food
Bug spray
Bleach
First aid kits
Motor oil
50 (20X30) tarps
20 empty 5-gallon gas cans
One of the areas hit hardest by the storm was the Pointe-Au-Chien Indian Tribe near an ancient Indian burial mound in the Bayou, the press release said. The relief supplies that would serve the burial ground and places that were hardest hit by the storm were received by the Presbytery of South Louisiana, the press release said.
By donating the 45 generators to organizations rather than individual families the organizations are able to help thousands of people, the club said.
“We have generators that are going out to organizations that support the community such as ... Nochi New Orleans Culinary Hospitality Institute, which, right now, is feeding hundreds of people every day,” Menge said in a video submitted to the Island Packet.
With the generators, Farsetti said in the video that the organization can “double” the number of people they are feeding.
“I think if we had just donated 45 generators to 45 people, we would have been remiss in our duty because helping a lot of people was our goal,” Farsetti said.
This story was originally published September 12, 2021 at 1:15 PM.
