Bryan County Fire collecting donations for those impacted by Hurricane Ida

BRYAN COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - Before Hurricane Ida had even made landfall, a battalion chief for Bryan County Fire & Emergency Services had an idea.

“He said, ‘you know what let’s start collecting items for the victims of Hurricane Ida.’ I said, ‘you know what? That’s a great idea lets go ahead and post it on our social media and let’s get going,’” said Bryan County Fire Chief & EMA Director Freddy Howell.

It didn’t take long for the community to respond.

“Right after we posted it, it was, you know, just a matter of hours before we started receiving stuff,” said Chief Howell.

A response that wasn’t a bit surprising to Chief Howell.

“You know, we live in a generous community, a generous area. The whole coastal area here is very generous and God loving people.”

While items like non-perishable food, toiletries and water have been rolling in, what they need now, is a way to get it there.

“We’d like to get a partner with a tractor-trailer and a truck to haul the stuff to Louisiana for us if we can,” Chief Howell says.

Allowing them to donate as much as possible to those who truly need it most.

Sending with it something perhaps just as important.

“You know I hope the message is that there’s hope in this world. Right now this country and world is seeing a lot of disasters and terrible things going on and I just wanted to bring a little hope and humanity to this crisis that they’re living through,” said Chief Howell.

If you’d like to help you can drop of donations to any of the Bryan County or Richmond Hill Fire Stations.

They aren’t taking clothes, but they say some items they could really use are for babies and pets.

For more information on donating or helping them get those items to Louisiana click here to contact Bryan County.

Copyright 2021 WTOC. All rights reserved.