The following relief effort was coordinated in conjunction with the Steel Lion relief effort and was planned, coordinated and executed by retired military personnel for the victims of Hurricane Helene.
Operation Steel Lion was directly responsible for sending eight tractor-trailer loads of donations. The American Legion posts from across the state of New Hampshire played a tremendous role in at least one of the trailers sent to North Carolina. This actually started with three veterans affiliated with Post 59 in Hillsboro: Ernie Giovelli (adjutant), Donn Mann (commander) and Scott Chausee (finance officer), trying to get supplies to those who needed them most.
Giovelli contacted the Red Cross because he had a pickup truck with 100 cases of water. Chausee offered to assist with his own pickup truck of bottled water, and it grew from there. They were instructed by the Red Cross that they would not be able to get these supplies into North Carolina because the roads into that location were completely shut down. So Giovelli contacted Mann for guidance, who then put them in touch with Col. Kenny Mintz, one of the owners of Steel Lion, a trucking company.
Mintz further directed them to their warehouse in southern New Jersey. After the dynamic duo's first run, they formulated a plan to get as many supplies as possible to the hurricane victims. It was with that idea that Post 59 would contact all 92 Legion posts within the state. Each post was directed to collect necessary goods, water, food, clothing, diapers, etc., to their district locations; there are nine in the state. After several days of receiving donations, the Steel Lion crew set up a pickup for each of the district locations. An entire tractor-trailer was filled with relief supplies. I am proud of the effort from our post and all the New Hampshire posts. All 92 contributed in some way, some materially and some financially. Here is a synopsis of each post’s contribution. Post 72 in Alton and Post 59 gathered 22 and 13 pallets of supplies respectively. Additionally, Post 4 in Keene, Post 22 in Lebanon, Post 23 in Milford, Post 25 in Newport and Post 47 in Rollinsford all made contributions. Thanks to the huge effort by the American Legion posts of New Hampshire and Steel Lion, much-needed supplies were distributed to the people most affected by this terrible storm.
