One Year After Helene: Badges & Boxes Reflects on $2 Million Relief Effort Across Western North Carolina

Albemarle, N.C. — One year after Hurricane Helene tore through Western North Carolina, Badges & Boxes, Inc. is taking stock of a relief effort that delivered more than $2 million in essential goods across the High Country and equipped roughly 100 displaced families with the supplies they needed to remain on their property while rebuilding.

In the weeks following Helene’s late-September 2024 landfall, Badges & Boxes worked alongside local emergency management, the North Carolina National Guard, Mercury One, and other nonprofit partners to push aid into mountain communities that flooding had cut off from the road network. The organization helped distribute all-season yurts, wood stoves, solar generators with solar panels, fire mats, and other essentials — supplies chosen so families could shelter on their own land rather than displace into distant temporary housing.

As the response transitioned from emergency aid to long-term recovery, Badges & Boxes also helped restock supply and donation centers across Western North Carolina, contributing to the broader inventory that other relief organizations continue to draw from.

The Helene response reflects the operating model Badges & Boxes was built around — accountable partnerships between law enforcement officers, agencies, and nonprofits, delivering practical help directly to vulnerable families. Founded by Wilson, a North Carolina detective with more than two decades of public safety experience, the organization first scaled that model during the COVID-19 pandemic through grassroots food outreach in Stanly County and has continued to expand it since.

One year on, recovery work in the High Country is still under way. Badges & Boxes continues to coordinate with regional partners as families move from emergency shelter into permanent rebuilds.