As Hurricane Helene passed and the extent of the destruction and isolation caused by the storm became apparent, Hannah Herman and Marren Dougherty — the two student co-leaders of Warren Wilson’s Wellness Crew — knew that the campus community would need not just a reliable first aid station but also trauma response and mental health support.
Hannah, Marren, and other student volunteers set up a pop-up wellness center in the conference room across from the cafeteria inside Gladfelter Student Center— the one building on campus with a generator running immediately following the storm. They included a first aid station, quiet relaxation areas, an art therapy station, and more. They stocked it with water, food, hygiene items, and harm reduction supplies such as condoms and NARCAN. They inventoried resources and connected students to them, providing everything from therapy appointments and a list of people on campus with medical training to cell phone charging stations.
“I think it’s a great learning experience, in a way. I hate to say that, almost, but, to be in a crisis right now and have the resources we have and to learn how to handle it responsibly,” Hannah said. “I really care about this community, these people, and this place. This is what I have to give, and these are the skills that I have and can contribute.”
Both students used skills that they had learned through their class work and work crews. Hannah used the risk management skills they learned with their Outdoor Leadership Major and Wilderness First Responder training. Marren used many of the skills she has learned from her Expressive Art Therapy minor and the Wellness Crew, such as how to regulate one’s own nervous system after experiencing anxiety or trauma.
When the Wellness students held a yoga and sound bath session two days after the storm, the room was packed — more than three times the number of community members attended than a wellness event would have attracted before the storm. “it’s one of those things you don’t know you need until you do it,” Marren said.
Both students were extremely impressed with how quickly the Warren Wilson community rallied and supported one another. Marren and Hannah collaborated with the Farm Crew to set up handwashing stations around campus, since water service was out. They worked with the Garden Crew, who had a working gas stove, to create a place where people with special dietary needs could prepare food.
“Students have been really mindful about taking only the resources that they need and making sure that everyone else has what they need,” Hannah said.
Within a few days, once campus was a secure and stable homebase in the midst of so much loss, teams of students, faculty, and staff started driving a mile down the road to Hearts with Hands, a disaster relief nonprofit, to work volunteer shifts for the local community.
“We [students] know that if we need to go, we have a home somewhere else, and we can fill our cup there,” Marren said. “I think that also makes me much more willing to push myself to stay and be here, because I know I have the privilege to leave.”
Hannah said that after a natural disaster, “we spend so much time in community and caring for one another, and there’s all of these heartbreaking things. Caring for one another is how we hold space for that heartbreak.”
