LAKEWOOD, NJ — When Cody Coburn put out a call for donations a week ago to help the victims of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina, he was expecting to send six planes and a large box truck south with supplies.
Six days later, Coburn had a follow-up request: pause the donation deliveries to Lakewood Municipal Airport, please.
“We’re overwhelmed,” his cousin, Robert McHugh, said Tuesday night as he and other volunteers sorted items and gathered up needed items to send to a family aboard one of the planes.
McHugh, president of the Jersey Aero Club, said the response to Coburn’s call to help the victims in western North Carolina, where Helene’s deluge of rain caused floods that washed away towns and roads and isolated thousands of people, has been beyond anything they considered when they first set out to help.
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As of Tuesday night, members of the Jersey Aero Club had flown 36 loads of supplies from Lakewood Municipal Airport to help victims, accounting for more than 18,000 pounds of items, McHugh said, and there are more flights scheduled.
The pilots have paid for the fuel themselves, donating more than $56,000 in fuel and airtime to the initiative, he said.
“We’ve exceeded our capacity as a flight club,” said McHugh, who lives in Brick. “We’re just a bunch of folks who love to fly and get hamburgers. This is a very different mission for us.”
McHugh said Coburn first called him on Sept. 29 trying to find out if they could fly oxygen tanks to a nursing home near Woodruff, South Carolina, where Coburn’s sister works for the police department.
Coburn said his sister told him there was a serious need for the tanks because of elderly patients who needed oxygen and were unable to use electric machines that produced a constant flow of oxygen.
But some research raised issues, including that they would need a prescription to obtain the tanks, along with risks associated with carrying pressurized canisters at 7,000 feet in the air, McHugh said.
When that wasn’t viable, Coburn asked McHugh if they could fly gear to a sheriff’s office near Woodruff, which had lost all of its personal protective equipment in the flooding. The Ocean County Sheriff’s Office provided gear, McHugh said
He sent off an email to the 150 members of the Jersey Aero Club, looking for pilots willing to donate their time to fly. The club owns six planes that are for the use of its members, and McHugh volunteered them for the relief flights.
Coburn posted his initial plea for donations shortly after, and the effort expanded from there. It’s also changed quickly over the few short days since the first flights took off on Friday.
Initial deliveries of supplies went straight to Asheville to an area where the main relief efforts are being coordinated.
Now, McHugh said, “we have been delivering plane loads for specific families.”
They are in contact with church groups and community groups in isolated areas in four counties — Avery County, Ashe County, Elk River County and Jackson County — in North Carolina. Those groups relay specific needs and McHugh said volunteers at the airport fill the requests, placing the items on a pallet that is then weighed before loading a plane that then delivers the items to their connections on the ground and ultimately to the families in need.
They had 12 flights scheduled to depart Wednesday and have flights reserved every day through Oct. 19, McHugh said.
In one area the devastation is so bad that the people receiving the deliveries have to meet them on horseback, he said.
“It’s kind of fun because we’re really able to meet the people we’re helping,” McHugh said.
In the process of filling the needs, items that have been donated that have not been specifically on a wants list have been put in a 53-foot trailer for transportation to one of the generic distribution centers.
McHugh said that while they are pausing on accepting donations of supplies, they are still in need of volunteers to help sort the overwhelming amount of items at the airport. People who would like to help can go to the airport at 1900 Cedar Bridge Ave. in Lakewood any day this week during the hours the airport is open.
“We need volunteers at the airport to prep planes and sort items for pallets,” he said.
They also are welcoming donations to help offset the fuel costs incurred by the pilots. Donations can be made by check payable to the Jersey Aero Club, by Venmo to the Jersey Aero Club or to Coburn’s Cash App account for his business, Cole Home Construction.
“It’s awesome seeing how this has transpired over the last six days,” McHugh said. “Cody’s been a powerhouse.”
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