Yaarab Shriners Bring Relief to North Carolina After Hurricane Helene Devastation

When Johnny Carswell, Oriental Guide of Yaarab Shriners in Atlanta, Georgia, heard about the devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina last fall, he knew his temple (chapter) had to act immediately. “That’s what we do as Masons,” he said. “Our obligation is to help our brothers in their time of need. We’re fortunate down here, and those people are in a bad way up there.”

He didn’t hesitate to call Imperial Potentate Richard Burke, also a Yaarab Shriner, for advice on starting a relief project. He connected Carswell with Shea Fadel, the Potentate of Oasis Shriners in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Allan Sherlin, the coordination and logistics chairman there. “So, at that point, I got in touch with Bob Mount, who is our Potentate, and he told me to just go ahead and do what we needed to do,” Carswell said.

He and his team put the word out on the temple’s Facebook page, and donations soon came pouring in, both via Amazon Prime and in person, including generators, clothing, food and toiletries. “Pretty much anything you can think of, we had it,” he said. “People just came out of the woodwork. It was a very good response.”

Within three weeks, the Yaarab Shriners had amassed six trailers full of goods. “It was very overwhelming,” Carswell, who has been a Shriner since 2016, recalled. “We figured it was probably about 55,000 pounds of material.”

On November 3, about 30 nobles pitched in to load up the goods. A day later, the caravan drove to the affected areas in North Carolina, unloading two trailers each at distribution centers in Burnsville, Cranberry and Bakersville. The process only took one day, but Carswell wasn’t prepared for all they encountered.

“Once we got up there, you could see the devastation. It was heartbreaking,” he said. “One place, you could barely get a trailer in there, and the smell was so bad from dead animals, sewer overflow. It was horrible.” He recalls residents living in tents and families being so isolated by damage and debris that they could only be reached by horses and mules. “It was taking up to two days to get to these people just to get them the bare necessities,” Carswell said.

In the end, about 180 displaced families in six counties benefited from the temple’s relief efforts. And the work hasn’t stopped. Yaarab Shriners is currently collecting furniture for residents who are rebuilding their homes and hopes to deliver donations in January.

Carswell, who lives in Jefferson, Georgia, and is self-employed, said all the hard work was worth it when he saw the reactions of those receiving the aid. “They were very grateful,” Carswell said. “They were overwhelmed.”