It’s been a week and a half since Helene first made landfall as a category 4 hurricane, but the total impact of the storm is still coming to light. The death toll continues to climb, recently surpassing 230, and many areas are still hard to access after heavy rain – more than two feet’s worth in some areas – caused devastating flooding that wiped out roads. With your clicks, trivia participation, shopping for a cause, and direct donations, we’ve been providing support to impacted people, pets, and bees. Here’s how you’ve helped!

Emergency Aid

With countless homes and animal shelters damaged or destroyed by flooding, people and pets have all been through an ordeal since Helene first hit. We’ve been working with Greater Good Charities (GGC) to provide emergency supplies in the aftermath. GGC has been on the ground in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina distributing items like water, socks, hygiene kits, and pet food.

With the help of partners including Feeding Tampa Bay, we were able to distribute 5,000 hygiene kits throughout Florida within days of Helene’s arrival. These were sent to 10 counties in the Tampa Bay area, which was seriously impacted by the storm. We also sent 16,500 pounds of pet food from Mars and Champion Pet Food to partners in Florida.

Within a week of the storm’s landfall, we also worked with partners to send trucks with essential supplies further north, where flooding was intense and communities were harder to reach.

That included five trucks that were sent to hard-hit Asheville, North Carolina, and unloaded at Asheville Humane Society for distribution into the community. Other items – including water, hygiene supplies, and pet food - were delivered the day before to the Asheville community center, which is serving as a staging area for supplies and a gathering spot for displaced families. GGC teams also headed out to surrounding areas, including those struggling with access, to distribute more items.

This work is ongoing, with more deliveries planned, as well as more coordination in the area to determine further need. You can help this effort here.

Shelter Evacuations

With your help, we were also able to keep pets out of harm’s way before Hurricane Helene even made landfall. Just before the storm, GGC teamed up with Florida SPCA and the no-kill shelter Halo to transport more than 100 shelter pets in the path of the storm to safer areas, through the use of vans. This work not only kept the animals safe but also helped them focus their attentions on finding their forever homes. Other animals are also on their way to finding forever homes, thanks to an emergency flight out of the Southeast. 

On Oct 2, we flew 125 shelter dogs and cats from South Carolina, where shelters are seeing an influx of lost and displaced pets, to Wisconsin shelters with more room and a better ability to get these pets into homes faster. This also helped take a little bit of stress off the plates of Southeastern shelters, which may be dealing with their own damages and infrastructure issues along with the overflow of pets.

Among the shelters lending a helping hand were Humane Animal Welfare Society - HAWS of Waukesha, Elmbrook Humane Society, Washington County Humane Society, Humane Society of Jefferson County (WI), Dane County Humane Society, Eau Claire Community Humane Association - ECCHA, Green County Humane Society, and Wisconsin Humane Society.

We’re currently working with other shelters in the Southeast to determine their needs, along with shelters further north prepared to take on more pets, so we can stage more flights. Click here to help.

Injured Pets

As lost and displaced pets inundate those crowded shelters, many are dealing with medical issues caused by the storm. This could be broken bones, serious cuts, severe dehydration, or illnesses caused by contaminated floodwaters and increased interactions with wildlife. All these additional medical needs put more demand on already taxed shelters and shelter workers.

We’ve been working to establish pet medication donation hubs, including at Florida SPCA, and determine veterinary needs at shelters. One such hub will be SPCA Florida in Lakeland, Florida. If you’d like to help support the medical needs of pets impacted by Helene, and give shelters needed relief by extension, you can do so here.

Feeding Bees

There are victims of Hurricane Helene that have a direct impact on our day-to-day lives, as well: Honey bees. Pollinators like bees are responsible for the production of about a third of the world’s food crops, including more than 130 types of fruits and vegetables, almonds, and even the coffee we drank this morning. Unfortunately, the beekeepers who care for these little heroes of agriculture have reported that an estimated 95,000 hives have been destroyed throughout the Southeast.

The damage to hives comes as many of the surviving bees’ usual food sources – including crops and flowers – have also been wiped out by Helene. That means they’re in dire need of backup food to avoid starving. GGC is on the ground with Mann Lake Bee and Ag Supply, the largest global supply house for honey bees, to distribute emergency bee pollen substitute and syrup to impacted beekeepers in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

As the fallout of the storm continues to be understood, we’ll be coordinating with beekeepers’ associations across impacted states to assess further need.

Emergency feed is essential to keeping the remaining bees alive, which, in extension, is critical to our food system. If you’d like to help feed bees in the aftermath, click here.