“North Carolina needs you,” Megan Moorehead thought to herself. The moment her phone rang, Moorehead knew something was wrong. It had been days since she’d heard from her friend in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene tore through the region, leaving destruction in its wake. Cell service was down, roads were washed away, and entire neighborhoods were unrecognizable.
“Megan, it’s terrible, but we’re safe,” her friend said.
The relief was short-lived as the call continued. Children were left orphaned, homes were reduced to rubble, and survivors were running out of food and supplies.
“We need help,” her friend pleaded, describing the chaos around her.
Moorehead’s “mom mode” kicked in. “Challenge accepted,” she thought as her vision turned into action. Within moments, she began organizing an effort that would evolve into a community-wide movement spanning Middle Tennessee to northern Alabama. It soon became clear that here in Middle Tennesee and surrounding states, people love their neighbors, both near and far.
This initiative, spearheaded by Megan Moorehead, her loved ones, and customers from The Intimacy Boutique, proves that when disaster strikes, ordinary people can step up to do extraordinary things.
When disaster strikes, empathy mobilizes action
Hurricane Helene was not just another headline. The storm ravaged the lives of thousands across the southeast. Floodwaters swept away cars, homes, and businesses. Entire communities in Middle Tennessee and North Carolina were left stranded with limited access to necessities.
The images on the news were devastating — streets turned into rivers, families huddled in shelters, and volunteers working relentlessly to rescue those trapped. But for Moorehead and many others who had loved ones in the area, the devastation was personal.
This is where Middle Tennessee, with its outpouring of love, resources, and support, transformed one simple initiative into a movement. Moorehead’s first step was to simply ask for help. Her network of customers and community members had always been a reliable source of support for local causes, but this time, the need was greater.
“If anybody needs help, I specifically go straight to my customers because they always back me 100%,” she explained.
Moorehead’s friend owned a small private airport just outside the disaster zone. With the airstrip intact, it became the perfect space for delivering supplies. Moorehead reached out to her customers and community, explaining the dire situation. She didn’t just receive support — she was overwhelmed by it.
In less than 48 hours, her call to action on social media yielded a wave of donations. Local businesses, individuals, and even strangers brought resources like food, blankets, building and cooking supplies, tents, sleeping bags, toiletries, baby formula, and dog food.
The logistics, however, created a challenge. Given the large volume of supplies, their initial plans to transport items by car proved impractical. That’s when pilots began volunteering their planes.
The beauty in community
To show her appreciation to the pilots, Moorehead posted on social media requesting donations for jet fuel. Within hours, the group raised $1,000.
“It wasn’t just me,” Moorehead said. “Hundreds of people made this happen.”
She continued, “We had three hours for people to donate, and they made it happen. And we had so many supplies that we bulked out of the plane before we weighed out. We got roughly 4000 pounds in the air.”
Volunteers worked around the clock to gather, sort, and load supplies. Within days, six small planes were ready to transport supplies into North Carolina. But when a larger cargo plane became available — capable of carrying 5,500 pounds — Moorehead took on the challenge of filling it.
The domino effect was astonishing. Moorehead and her team’s efforts inspired others to take action. Strangers heard about her initiative and offered support, while local businesses anonymously donated money and resources.
The first flight carried roughly 4,000 pounds of supplies, the remainder of which were sent on later trips.
Lessons in empathy and action
The outpouring of support Moorehead witnessed was humbling but unsurprising. In moments of crisis, the bonds of community are strengthened, and empathy becomes an impetus.
“You’ve got to think, ‘What if I was in their shoes?’ And that’s what I kept relaying to everybody through social media,” she said.
So, Moorehead began sharing her friends’ personal accounts of what happened during and after the hurricane. She hoped that through her posts, the community would empathize with the hurricane victims on a deeper level and be inspired to help in any way they could — whether through physical effort or monetary support.
“It changes your life when you get to hear firsthand exactly what’s going on. Sharing personal experiences with them and telling them what these people are going through, and hearing it directly from the source — instead of the media or the news — is really what people should try to look for in the future when it comes to disaster relief.”
Moorehead and her team’s hurricane relief efforts challenge the “bystander effect,” the social phenomenon where individuals assume others will step up, ultimately leading to inaction. Instead, it shows the power of a few individuals’ initiative to mobilize an entire community.
“So many people don’t want to be named. There were hundreds of people who made this happen. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my customers and all the local businesses. They spanned from Manchester to Winchester to Fayetteville, all the way down to Alabama.”
