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The Editor’s Notes
So many people played a role in this article on the mutual aid networks that operated during and after Hurricane Helene.
At a dinner this summer, Mark Constantine shared his conviction about the difference community leaders and networks made after the storm.
It was a framework I had not heard before, but I had so many memories from the early days and weeks after the storm. It was a lightbulb moment for me. “That’s what I was seeing,” I thought.
Robb Webb later shared research with me about these networks after Hurricane Katrina.
Without ever calling them mutual aid networks, Elizabeth Brazas and her team were not only moving dollars 24/7, supporting the role of schools as key anchor institutions in a crisis, and investing in nonprofits to expand their footprint quickly, she was out there with us.
My thanks to Ben Humphries for taking my memories and tracking down the people and places I remembered from those early days, and then making meaning of them.
Russ Altenburg was with me the day we visited an apartment complex where migrant farmworkers live. Ben found the apartments, confirmed it was the right place, and then went back three times until he found the sources for this story.
Please email me at mrash at ednc.org if you have other examples of the ways mutual aid play a role in the recovery of our beloved western North Carolina.
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