10/05/2025
It's been a year since Hurricane Helene devastated countless communities across the southeast. We happened to land in Asheville the night before the flood. We packed up our friends' minivan with rafting gear in Hot Springs, NC in the morning and set off on a roadtrip to find whitewater. By that evening, the town had suffered catastrophic flooding and lost all power and comms. We were only able to communicate because our friends have a generator and a starlink. If you all remember, I put up a crowd funding post on Facebook and in a few short days had raised over $4K to buy critical supplies for the town of Hot Springs. I love you all for it. The remaining funds were donated to the nonprofit Rebuild Hot Springs that was founded in the wake of Helene.
We were able to spend a couple days in the aftermath of the flood assisting with the clean up, mostly mucking out our friend's brewery. We attended the daily town briefings and ate World Central Kitchen meals helicoptered in by Jose Andres himself. I was moved by the community response, how they wasted no time in getting to work to help their neighbors and learn how to manage disaster response on the fly with little support. So I made my friends at a piece of art that read "Hot Springs Strong" in the style of their logo.
Unbeknownst to me, they turned it into my favorite merch ever, with a portion of the proceeds going to Rebuild Hot Springs. I am honored that my art can continue to help this community recover. If you're ever passing through Hot Springs, stop by Big Pillow Brewing for a beer and a t-shirt and know that you are helping in the recovery effort as well.
