Woman turns her Newport coffee shop into volunteer coordination center for flood relief

COCKE COUNTY, Tenn. ( WATE ) — A coffee shop owner in Newport is dedicating her time and space to help connect volunteers with those in need.

Michelle Lane owns Wonderfully Made Coffee & More on Cosby Highway. After Hurricane Helene flooded the area, she began volunteering at the Emergency Operations Center.

“We had lots of volunteers and we had community members that were hurting and needing help, but we didn’t have any way to connect them,” she said.

After realizing this, Lane offered up her coffee shop to serve as a volunteer coordination center. They connect volunteers who want to help, with people who have had damage to their homes.

“Our community members are calling in and letting us know what needs they have. So we list it here and for instance, like this address, we have their name and phone number and address and there’s a large tree across the creek. So if someone comes in that has a chainsaw and they want to use that, we dispatch them to that,” she said.

They also help coordinate volunteers to help with things like donation distribution. With the help of the National Guard, the center has dispatched hundreds of volunteers.

“We have page after page after page that we have completed and checked off. Now these people are ready to put the fans in, let it dry, treat it with a mold deterrent, and then start building back,” she said.

Lane has been running the center while also dealing with her own clean up.

“My husband lost his childhood home and that’s where my middle son was living, and my middle son, lost just about everything,” she said. “We were able to get a few items out and his car floated down the river.”

While many of the volunteers have been local residents, Lane said help has come from all over.

“There is no way that we expected this many volunteers and I mean, I know we live in the volunteer state, but these people are coming from all over. We’ve had people from Pennsylvania, from Salt Lake City, from Texas, all over that have came in. That’s the only reason that we are where we are today,” she said.

Lane also hopes to start a program to connect people from out of town with families in Cocke County to help fund home repairs.

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