Two donors help fill trailer for trips to hurricane-ravaged area

Lucy McCue of the Town of Belgium wanted to collect and deliver items to victims of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.

She got more than she expected.

“I thought I’d be going down there with a pickup full of things and I wound up with a trailer that I could hardly get everything in,” she said.

Two major contributors filled the trailer — Paul and Julie Carufel of Belgium and the staff of Cedar Grove Veterinary Services.

Five people helped McCue load the trailer.

“Doctors were up in my truck trying to push things in,” McCue said. “That meant a lot.”

While the generosity warmed McCue’s heart, one trip to North Carolina nearly broke it.

People are buried in mud. Cadaver dogs are being used to find them.

“There will be an enormous amount of people who will never be found,” McCue said.

“The heartbreak that I saw, the fact that it’s cold up in the mountains and there are still men and women that are searching through toxic waste — it’s not just toxic, it’s nuclear waste up there.”

Many roads are still not passable, and homeless children are walking the streets in need of food and shelter, she said.

McCue said she plans to make more trips to North Carolina.