RALEIGH –The North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund has raised in the last year $5.9 million, helping more than 5,000 North Carolina families, the governor’s office announced Thursday.
“When Hurricane Florence devastated North Carolina, people across the country gave their money and their time to help,” Cooper said. “Donations and volunteers are a huge part of our ongoing work to recover and rebuild, and we’re grateful for the assistance.”
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Donations since the September 2018 hurricane include $1 from an 8-year-old boy in Georgia, $412,412 from Stephen Colbert and the Late Show, $1 million from United Healthcare and $1.5 million from Blue Cross & Blue Shield of North Carolina. Survivors of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Hurricane Sandy in New York, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and Hurricane Irma in Florida also contributed to relief efforts.
In addition to financial help, more than 168,000 volunteers gave more than 3.4 million hours of their time by staffing storm shelters, serving meals, delivering emergency supplies and cleaning out flooded homes.
The Golden LEAF Foundation and the North Carolina Community Foundation serve as the grant-making organizations for the N.C. Disaster Relief Fund.
As of Tuesday, the Golden LEAF Foundation has used donations to the Relief Fund to make grants totaling more than $5.4 million to 48 nonprofit organizations and local government entities serving 25 counties. Golden LEAF reports that more than 5,000 households have received assistance from these funds so far.
The North Carolina Community Foundation in April allocated an initial $1 million in disaster relief grants using a combination of funds from the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund and Foundation’s own Disaster Relief Fund. Grants were made to 26 nonprofit organizations serving nine affected counties to help those communities recover.
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See the complete list of grants awarded to date.
