United Way leader dispels rumors about misuse of aid

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — They got significant social media traction — assertions that Red Cross and other large agencies were misdirecting donations or misusing donations for Hurricane Helene victims and alienating local volunteers and donors.

The problem, an area non-profit leader and the director of Bristol Motor Speedway both said, is that those assertions simply weren’t accurate.

“There’s a lot of misinformation circulating on social media,” United Way of East Tennessee Highlands CEO Leslie Dalton told News Channel 11 Wednesday.

Dalton heaped praise on churches, small community groups and neighbors who stepped up in the first hours after Friday’s devastating floods.

“We love the grassroots that are popping up and helping people, and it’s important for neighbors to help neighbors,” she said. “People want to get out and help. They want to do something, and we love that. We don’t want to discourage anybody from helping their neighbor.”

But the magnitude of the disaster has meant that the presence of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and in the case of volunteer coordination, Dalton’s group, is critical to a long-term effort.

“We just want the public to know that organizations like ours, like Red Cross, like TEMA, like FEMA, they are set up to respond to disasters like this in an organized manner,” Dalton said.

“They have a process. They have a procedure. I know that might seem slow sometimes, but they have best practices that they follow that have worked in the past with disasters like this.”

Rumors that those large agencies have been taking donations from distribution sites simply aren’t true, Dalton said.

“I have talked to TEMA, and the only donations that are leaving distribution sites are if those distribution sites are requesting that items be moved to Bristol Motor Speedway (BMS) because they don’t have the room for them,” she said.

Indeed, at the massive speedway, General Manager Jerry Caldwell — with emergency management officials busily working around him and community members already dropping off donations — said the 30,000-foot-view isn’t available to churches, small non-profits and neighbors working on the ground.

“When our friends and neighbors were so impacted by this devastation, we immediately reached out to the governor’s office to say, what can we do?” Caldwell said. “How can we be most effective as Bristol Motor Speedway?”

Caldwell said Gov. Bill Lee connected BMS with TEMA. They began housing people in their campgrounds, from TEMA workers to search and rescue teams. BMS also turned its massive South Building into a distribution center.

Caldwell said if people want to deliver donations locally, that’s great. However, BMS’s collaboration with large organizations is helping make distribution more efficient.

“We have a hotline where the local emergency management folks are able to call in, tell us what they’re looking for, and then we’re able to get it right back out to the community as quickly as possible,’ Caldwell said as a semi-truck drove by to deliver a massive load of goods.

The speedway’s current role could lead to some misunderstandings — but only if people choose to mistrust the organizations taking the lead at this point.

“You may have a lot of one item that gets delivered in a certain county, and there may be another county that’s not getting that and they need it,” he said. “They’re able to call here and we’re able to coordinate the distribution of that and make sure that it’s getting to the right folks.”

Dalton said the process that’s been set up in less than a week “is the most efficient and effective way to get the donations and items to the people that need them.

“We are so blessed that we have huge companies coming in and bringing semi trucks of donations.”

BMS has bays set up for each area county and will maximize throughput of exactly what folks on the ground in each community say they need.

Dalton said she understands people’s concerns but hopes correct information can assuage them and prevent folks from deciding they’re simply not going to help because of a lack of trust.

“There’s a lot of moving parts, there’s a lot of people on the ground, there are a lot of things going on,” she said. “Stress is high. We know that everybody’s still in a little bit of shock because nothing like this in our area has ever happened. So sometimes there’s perception and people may see things or perceive things that aren’t quite accurate. we understand that.

“We just hope that those things aren’t spread on social media so that the people on the ground, our emergency management teams and those who are trained in these situations can do their job and take care of our community.”

That doesn’t mean some unscrupulous actors won’t be out there, Dalton said. Emergency situations with goods and aid flowing in seem to draw them like flies to honey.

“If anybody is concerned that something’s happening, that’s not ethical, that seems off, that just doesn’t seem right, it’s not coming from one of the organizations that are set up to handle this disaster,” she said.

“If you see that, let somebody know, please, because it is not coming from FEMA or TEMA or United Way or Red Cross. Let somebody know, and we can try and prevent situations from like that from happening.”

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