Hub City organizations partner to hold disaster relief drive

JACKSON, Tenn. — Last week, Hurricane Helene left many residents of east Tennessee without power or shelter.

The Jackson Fire Department started a water bottle drive last Sunday in support of east Tennessee residents who were affected by Hurricane Helene.

Jackson Energy Authority and Serra of Jackson decided to partner with the fire department and hold a specific needs drive.

“It’s going to be at Serra Chevrolet on Saturday, October 5 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” said Jackson Fire Chief Don Friddle.

The items will be distributed directly to those communities who were harmed. Thanks to the help of the community, over 70 pallets of water have already been provided to east Tennessee citizens during the departments relief efforts.

“We don’t want to send them anything that they don’t need because it just takes up space and really they’re having to find places to put it and it will never be used,” said Friddle.

“We’ll have personnel participating in helping collect the items. The other involvement that the Jackson Energy Authority has is that we’ll have a truck and extended trailer to actually carry part of the loads that are coming. I think the fire department has some other vehicles and that will be done Sunday going into Monday,” said Steve Bowers.

Each business said that it’s important that we help in any way we can.

“We know what tornadoes have been like. We know what flooding has been like because we’ve had that in our history. This is concentrated and extensive and these are Tennessee neighbors of ours,” said Friddle.

“When we had our disasters, Jackson was on the receiving end and we had many communities show up in our support, so this is our way to pay it forward,” said Bowers.

The owner of Serra said the drop is at the Chevy building showroom. The address to Serra is 189 Stonebridge Boulevard.

To see a full list of items being requested, click here.

For more Tennessee news, click here.