In the days leading up to President Donald Trump’s visit to this corner of Appalachian North Carolina, Monica Glowinski said her biggest prayer for the people of this county devastated by the wrath of Hurricane Helene was that she hoped Trump would not let their plight be forgotten.
“I am optimistic that President Trump is focusing his energies here,” she said, adding that she hopes it is not a false promise. “Because I just don’t think the people could handle that at this point.”
Glowinski, who has been driving six hours each way from her home in Columbia, South Carolina, for four months straight with supplies such as food, water, and diapers to those affected in Swannanoa, said she was called to service just days after the images started to emerge from western North Carolina.
“We had a dear friend who lived in the Asheville area reach out to us to see if she could borrow our generator. Her neighborhood was without power and she had elderly and sick neighbors that she wanted to take care of,” Glowinski explained.
Her friend from Asheville came to pick it up and stopped at a Sam’s Club in South Carolina because nothing was open in her area. “As she shared with us the devastation in the area, we asked what was needed. She said everything so we reached out to friends and neighbors for donations with our intent to take items up to the mountains,” Glowinski recounted.