Hurricane Helene

A roundup of resources, organizations, and ways to support

Friends,

This newsletter was in its very early days of design when Hurricane Helene swept up from the Gulf of Mexico and left its heartbreaking mark over parts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

I called Asheville home for 20 years and only recently moved over the Smokies to East Tennessee. Southern Appalachia is ground zero for Helene’s impact, and while I wasn’t born here (or even in the U.S.), these beautiful mountains are in my blood, and these beautiful people are my people.

So, while ‘Among the Living’ will eventually evolve into what was originally intended (see the end of this post for what that will be!), for the next few weeks at least, it will provide a roundup of resources for recovering from Hurricane Helene. And beyond the next few weeks, there will still be ongoing frequent Helene updates among the other ‘regular’ posts.

This week, we will start with a roundup of financial resources for people in the Appalachian region who may need immediate access to funds to simply pay the rent or start to recover lost property and belongings.

We will then cover how to support organizations in the region who are helping with short- and long-term recovery, and then also share other ways to engage and assist. And there’ll be plenty more posts with specific ways to access or provide help.

Anything I share here will be a fully verified resource. It will also be politically neutral. If necessary, I will also address misinformation and the ugly rumors that have been spreading about the event itself and the officials who are there to help.

I hope that this will be a go-to reference for weeks and months to come for how to access help, and how to share your own skills or resources to assist our Appalachian neighbors.

Thank you for supporting this effort by subscribing (completely and always for free). Once you subscribe, you will automatically see each new post in your inbox, or you can access the posts via the Substack app.

love to all,

Anne

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A couple of other notes:

1. Comments will be open to all subscribers, but if at any point the comments get unruly, I will limit them, or turn them off. Please keep it civil and non-political.

2. The original goal of ‘Among the Living’: A brief explanation!

Over the last few years especially, there has been a noticeable increase, at least among my friends and colleagues, of how much ‘weight’ and pressure everyone is feeling - unsurprisingly, for so many real and serious reasons. But making the world a better place, let alone enjoying this one absurdly brief life we each have, becomes a lot harder when we’re operating from exhaustion, anxiety, fear, and sorrow.

So, at some point soon, this newsletter will evolve to explore how to live an expansive life of possibility, joy, generosity, and purpose, even in the face of big global and personal challenges. It will dive into our complex 21st Century circumstances, preoccupations, and opportunities, and seek to find a way to navigate life that allows us to both savor the incredible beauty and kindness of the world, while also contributing to its improvement. There will be plenty of fun and funny here as well! More background on this soon.

If your main goal in being here is to learn about Hurricane Helene and how to help (or be helped), please feel free to unsubscribe when we move into non-Helene posts, though a) I do intend to keep updating those resources for a long time to come - the recovery will take years, and b) I hope you’ll find the ‘regular’ newsletter interesting too, and I’d love to you to stay and be part of that community as well!