Breckenridge Texan

Breckenridge residents turn out to support Hurricane Harvey victims
September 03
08:07 2017

What started out as separate fundraising efforts on Facebook for the victims of Hurricane Harvey has come together as one local community effort.

Breckenridge residents Misty McAlmond, Carissa Berkley and Cassie Boggess have teamed up to raise money and collect donated food and supplies to deliver to the storm-stricken victims.

On the Saturday, the group had trailers, tables and boxes set up in front of the Stephens County Courthouse, collecting donations selling baked goods, and hot dogs, t-shirts and pony rides to raise money for their relief effort.

“We’re just raising relief money and taking donations to bring to the people who need it,” McAlmond said. She said that in addition to taking donations for the human tragedy in the storm, they are also raising funds and taking donations for the animals affected by the storm, including small animals, as well as livestock.

“I have people that were in Houston that were affected by it,” McAlmond said. “Everything that they had was a total lost. I had family in Port Aransas, also a total lost.”

She said there are several people here in Breckenridge who have family in the areas that were affected by the store.

Berkley said the efforts are going to be focused on some of the smaller areas near Beaumont that were hard hit and have not received much help.

“We’re going to Lumberton, right outside of Beaumont,” she said.  “Silsbee is there and Kountze, they’re all within a 15- to 20-minute ride.  They have four refugee shelters there. There are two in Kountze and two in Silsbee at this time. They haven’t received any help.”

In addition to taking food and supplies for the animals, Berkely said, they will also be bringing back livestock animals that can be put in foster care here. She said they have people who are willing to foster them, but they need people to help with donations.

“We still need donations for the horses and cattle and other livestock,” Berkley said. “We need hay and feed. Everybody thinks about the dogs and the cats, but they forget about the livestock that are out there. Anything you guys want to do, if you just to want bring sweet food for the horses or bags of cattle cake. ”

Their goal is to be in the damaged area on Saturday morning early and get in contact the local shelters and have them come by one at a time and start handing out supplies.

“We’re going to make an assembly line everybody is going to go through with a bag and get what they need for each family until everything is gone,” she said.

She said that on Sunday they will concentrate on getting animals together and bringing them back and start placing them in homes. Currently they have two goosenecks and one bumper-pull trailer for the trip. She said if anybody has a trailer they want to donate to be used to bring animals back, they can contact her at 254-246-0817 to make arrangements for them to pick up or drop it off if they need to. She said all the trailers would be returned cleaned out.

She said they’re trying to get all the trailers together before Friday because on Friday they are going to separate everything and put it into the trailers.

She said donations will be separated into three categories in the trailers – food, clothes and animal products.

“That way, people that have animals can go get stuff for their animals,” she said. “If they don’t have animals, then they don’t have to wait in line for that. We’re trying to keep everything separated as much as possible, so that we can hand out stuff to as many people as we can until we’re out and come back.”

They say this is only the first trip, and they’re planning on more trips and to continue their efforts until Houston and the surrounding counties tell them they don’t need any more help.

For more information on where to make donations, or find out how to help, contact Cassie Boggess at 254-246-5102, Misty McAlmond at 254-477-3352 or Carissa Berkley at 254-246-0817.

For information on other hurricane relief efforts going on in Breckenridge, see the Breckenridge Texan story Breckenridge groups to help with relief efforts.

Click here for more photos from Saturday’s collections efforts in the Breckenridge Texan’s photo gallery.

Story by Tony Pilkington

Cutline: Volunteers help Breckenridge residents unload supplies donated for Hurricane Harvey victims in front of the Stephens County Courthouse on Saturday, Sept. 2. A recently organized group of local residents is collecting donated supplies and selling items to raise money for the victims and the costs of transporting the supplies to the storm victims.  (Photo by Tony Pilkington, The Breckenridge Texan)

 

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