- October 24, 2024
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Editor's Note: This is an article submitted to the Observer by journalists in the Matanzas High School Newspaper Club.
With its colossal size of 400 miles in diameter, Hurricane Helene made far-reaching and devastating impacts across much of the Southeast. Helene held a record-breaking storm surge of over 15 feet when it made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend. Its rampage led far into Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina, leaving behind mass flooding, power outages and devastated infrastructure. Helene’s wrath was the most unforgiving to North Carolina with over 40 trillion gallons worth of rainfall causing catastrophic flooding and leaving an estimated 100,000 people without power and running water.
Many organizations and individuals have made an effort to help those affected by Hurricane Helene. Among those is a teen racecar driver and Junior at Matanzas High School, Logan Malone. The weekend before the impending Hurricane Milton, Logan decided to take selfless action and bring his racecar trailer to Palm Coast Ford and Home Depot, encouraging his community to fill it with donations and funds.
Among the donations was 13,000 pounds of water, cleaning supplies, canned goods and even strollers donated from generous members of the community. Collectively, Logan estimates $10,000 of supplies were donated from independent members of the community and local businesses. One of the largest donations came from Bluewater Homes, which donated four cases of water, $3,000 worth of food and some strollers.
Matanzas High School Newspaper Club journalists Remmika Battles and Bruce Blazer interviewed Logan at the donation site. We asked him what motivated him to spend his weekend collecting donations.
“I have a bunch of friends in North Carolina that I race with and I couldn’t get a hold of them,” he said.
He told us how one of those friends had reached out to him saying that there were towns underwater and that their family would have to evacuate. This would ultimately be the moment he went to his parents with the idea of collecting and transporting donations to neighboring cities like Tampa and even all the way to North Carolina.
Additionally, we learned that the Sunday he spent collecting donations he was scheduled to be in a race. To him however, the need to help others was more important than his own leisures.
Logan began his trip to North Carolina on Oct. 7 at 2:50 in the morning. He delivered the supplies at an Operation Airdrop to be sorted and flown into Asheville. After some complications, he and his father made it home at 9:50 the same night. His trip took approximately 19 hours.
At the donation site, Logan ended the interview by telling our team that with this act, he hopes to demonstrate “that there’s still positivity in the world.” Recognizing that while tragedy is inevitable, it’s how the community, both locally and nationally, responds to it is just as important as its severity.
Logan Malone is just one of the many positive and giving people in Palm Coast who believes when we are kind and give back, we can lift each other up and overcome the tragedies thrown our way.
