Help the families of Old Fort impacted by devastating floods

We live in Texas but our family is in Western North Carolina. Their hometown has been completely been demolished. After days of trying to contact everyone, our family is accounted for. They were lucky to have their homes still intact. They did incur quite a bit of property damage but nothing they can’t overcome. However, many of their friends and community member were not as lucky. Although the urge to go out there and do what we can to help is strong we know that resources are too limited to be another mouth to feed. Therefore we want to do what we can to help the community members of Old Fort.

Originally we only wanted to raise money for the short term recovery period but many people still wanted to donate to help the families the are at a complete loss. So we are going to keep it open for anyone wanting to contribute to these people.

Vaughn and Linda Shirlen grew up in Old Fort/Marion and personally know many of these families. Linda has taught in McDowell county for 30 years and Vaughn has worked at the plant in Old Fort for almost all of the last 37 years.

Linda has made supply runs to pick up diapers, wipes, medicine, non-perishable foods, chainsaw chains (very scarce), gloves, food for the animal rescue, toiletries, fruit for families with little ones, water, and heavy duty trash bags for clean up, food boxes for food that people are cooking to give out, etc. This has helped out tremendously. Vaughn and his son Brian have been working day and night helping clear roads, do welfare checks, cut up trees blocking roads and driveways.

So far we have a list of several families who are at a total loss and others that are close to it. We would like to continue to raise money for them. 100% of this money will go to this community and those in need. Any donation means more than words can express.

If you are unable to donate you can still help out by spreading the news about what's going on over there. The media has not given adequate coverage to the area, and the more light we shed on what's going on there, the quicker we can help them recover!

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please keep these people in your prayers.