Henderson Co. church said donations for Helene victims were “ransacked”

HENDERSON COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA) – The pastor of a church in Henderson County said that their stockpile of donations for Hurricane Helene victims were “ransacked,” but it won’t stop their efforts to help those in need.

“We have several people in our church where their house is totally gone,” Pastor at Fruitland Baptist Church, Chris Pace said.

Church officials said in the days following the storm, their church along with Fruitland Baptist Bible College, teamed up to collect supplies for community members in need.

“A gentleman drove all the way from Kentucky yesterday and brought some very essential items we have been looking for, like tarps and construction bags, and when I say ‘bring some items’ it was an entire U-Haul of them,” Pace said.

Director of Campus Facilities Fruitland Baptist Bible College, Bobby Garrett, said that they received donations from across the country.

“We had just such a gracious outpouring of the region, from all over the southeast, we had donations come in from Indiana, [and] from Mesa, Arizona,” Garrett said.

Church and college officials said some people decided to take advantage of the generosity. Donations that were ready for distribution were ransacked.

“We had it [happened] three nights, we had to pull in security. Now, we are having to pay security out of budget to prevent that from happening,” Garrett said. “It happens predominantly at night. There were 50 cars of looters. It was more of a mob type atmosphere here and it was really sad to see humanity stoop to that level.”

Despite the setback, officials said the work they are doing will continue.

“For a minute there I was in a dark place, because I would have given you that, I would have loaded your car. That does not detract from the fact that there are a lot of good people that have needs,” Pace added. “When I am sitting there and I have the chance to pray with someone because they haven’t got gas, they haven’t had propane and they are sitting there crying because I gave them a can of propane, I am going to stop because of one bad person when I see that?”

Pace said a once-in-a-lifetime disaster may be able to tear down buildings and trees, but it’s not strong enough to wipe away the resilience of his community.

“We don’t have to do a relief effort, but we get to and that’s the attitude we have to have,” Pace said. “There are people that lost everything that are going to keep going, so I am going to keep going, our church and community is going to keep going.”

Fruitland Baptist Bible College and Fruitland Baptist Church are no longer accepting supply donations. Church leaders said they are shifting their focus on recovery efforts.

However, they are still taking monetary donations online and ask if you make a donation to specify that you would like it to go towards Helene Recovery.

College officials said donations already collected will be distributed to the community and neighboring areas.

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