How to Help Those Impacted by the Hurricanes

Dear Pros,

You've got Hunter here. I'm home, finally, after spending September bouncing from one work event to another, one Delta terminal after another. This week I've leaned into the mundanity of school drop offs and farmers' market runs with a renewed sense of gratitude, and especially so after continuing to check in with my people in western North Carolina who are dealing with the catastrophic destruction from Hurricane Helene.

All I could feel in the days after Helene's biblical flooding was a sense of helplessness. I have a deep and abiding love for Asheville and its surrounding towns. My mom grew up there after my grandparents moved the family from California's Bay Area in the 1950s, when Gerber sent my grandfather to Asheville to open and manage a baby food plant. The region had an ample supply of apples and water for applesauce, and water was also the principal reason for the region's growth as a major beer producer 70 years later. But that water, which has given so freely of itself over the decades, turned and took so much in late September; now, more than two weeks later, it remains in short supply. Schools, hospitals, and small businesses can't reopen without it. Restaurants, during the region's busiest season, are not open, and many have resorted to launching GoFundMe campaigns just as they did to pay their staff during the early stages of the pandemic.

We still don't know how bad the damage really is in some of the smaller towns and remote hollers where I used to ramble in my teens and twenties, when I was living in North Carolina's central Piedmont region. And we're only now beginning to learn the full extent of the damage brought by another hurricane, Milton, which cut across Florida on Wednesday.

I felt helpless for a few days after Helene until the actions of everyday people like chefs, musicians, carpenters, and nurses, who had already jumped in to lend their talents and resources, jolted me out of my funk. There was 2015 Food & Wine Best New Chef Katie Button and her husband Felix Meana, partnering with World Central Kitchen to distribute meals in the community. Some of my favorite musicians quickly released albums to benefit charitable organizations like BeLoved Asheville, Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, and Rural Organizing and Resilience. My friends in Black Mountain coordinated nurses at a local brewery and helped search-and-rescue teams navigate washed-out routes to smaller towns like Bat Cave. Thankfully, some businesses have started to come back online this week, like East Fork Pottery and Spicewalla, the excellent spice company helmed by 2023 F&W Game Changer Meherwan Irani.

Last weekend I flew to Houston for Southern Smoke Foundation's annual fundraiser to show my support for a dozen Food & Wine Best New Chefs, including co-founder 2013 F&W Best New Chef Chris Shepherd and his wife and SSF executive director Lindsey Brown. So many chefs from around the country shared their time to cook for the attendees, raising $1.5 million in one night. That money will be used to support emergency financial relief for food and beverage workers in crisis, including the more than 2,000 Southern Smoke applicants in need from Western North Carolina, and also to support free mental health counseling.

What drove the power of the gathering home for all of us was when 2024 F&W Best New Chef Silver Iocovozzi, chef and owner of the Filipino restaurant Neng Jr.'s in Asheville, took the stage at Southern Smoke to describe how he, family, friends, and colleagues were coping with the disaster.

"As restaurant workers, chefs, and hospitality professionals, we are programmed, as our mission, to take care of our teams, loved ones, and community, knowing it's at our expense," he told the crowd.

"It was extremely difficult to leave Asheville today and be a part of the normal world. When I return tomorrow, I will still be without power, running water, or a consistent means of communication. My city is filled with destruction. It's hard to paint the picture for folks outside our reality."

"I'm asking everyone to open up their hearts and imagine this happening to your city and to help us rebuild ours. I hope you can remember us in the months to come."

Even if you, like I, can't physically be in North Carolina or Florida today to lend a hand, there are so many residents and restaurant community members there who need support right now. Please consider donating if you are able to and please stay tuned in. These communities will need assistance in the long term after the news cycle moves on to the next big story. You can use the links above to learn more about relief organizations in the area or you can use this list, which we published after Helene, or this list, which we created after Milton, to learn more about how you can help.

Thank you.

Warmly,
Hunter

P.S. Our Tinfoil Swans podcast is a Signal Awards finalist in the Food & Drink category, and I'd love for you to check out the Daniel Boulud episode that was nominated and to vote for us in the Listeners Choice Awards here.