As western North Carolina residents continue to grapple with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene’s historic impact, community leaders say Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (Blue Cross NC) is helping to make recovery a little easier.
Although the storm has passed, its impact left a lot of residents feeling a huge sense of loss that is making it challenging to cope.
“I am really happy about our partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina during this crisis,” said Dana Choquette, executive director of WNC Food Systems Coalition. “The [... team has been our advocate to pull together resources for us pre-Hurricane Helene, immediately after the storm and even now as we continue to recover.”
Blue Cross NC has worked with the Coalition for many years and understood how they support the community. When they needed help following Helene, the Coalition became one of many organizations that received supplies and funds from Blue Cross NC. The support allowed the coalition’s volunteers to deliver food, clothing and other emergency supplies door-to-door to residents within their 18-county footprint.
Blue Cross NC donated more than $3.2 million to local, regional and statewide relief and recovery efforts in partnership with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation. The company partnered with 70 organizations and nonprofits working in the region to ensure they can continue their work.
Since October, Blue Cross NC’s Healthy Blue Medicaid managed care plan has delivered more than 150,000 essential items to western North Carolina. These requested items – like diapers, cleaning supplies and first aid kits – met the immediate needs of hurricane victims.
Angela Boykin, CEO of Healthy Blue, says the company will be there as long as it takes to help its members and communities to get back on their feet.
“We know this unprecedented disaster is going to take a long time for our communities to rebuild, and, at Blue Cross NC, we will continue to support them as they work through the challenges that lie ahead,” Boykin said. “Helping our neighbors is who we are and has been central to our purpose for more than 90 years. We are in this together.”
Alec Hoffman, director of retail centers, led the effort to use the company’s four centers throughout the state as drop-off sites to collect items for Healthy Blue to distribute in western North Carolina.
“We used the Raleigh and Charlotte centers as donation drop off sites for employees and agent partners, but the need was different in Boone, so we were able to transform the center into a supply distribution site for the community,” Hoffman said. “We luckily had power in Boone pretty much the whole time, so we offered our space for residents to use to charge their phones and have a warm place to recover.”
The centers are ready to be used as drop off locations again as the needs expand during recovery. The Boone Center also serves as a gathering place where residents can participate in bingo, yoga and other activities to help them to work towards a new sense of normalcy.
Despite several employees being impacted personally in the region, Blue Cross NC employees have also helped their neighbors recover from this historic hurricane that left behind a huge sense of loss.
To support supply distribution in western North Carolina, employees shopped for and donated priority items. More than 42,000 items were donated by employees at a company-wide event in October.
More than $57,000 in employee directed donations have been made for Hurricane Helene relief efforts, and employees have been connected to volunteer efforts to support relief and recovery, including ongoing volunteer work with local diaper and food banks.
Choquette said residents who have benefited from Blue Cross NC’s support are grateful.
“This has just been so stressful for everyone,” Choquette said. “We help a lot of people who are high risk and who are battling addiction. When we were able to bring items to their door that were purchased with Blue Cross NC funds, folks were just relieved that someone thought enough to help them without judging them.”