After Hurricane Helene hit, I had a calling from God to use the resources that he had given me to go help those affected by the hurricane. I had seen videos on Facebook of the flooding and I could tell the situation in North Carolina and Tennessee was not good. I set my stock trailer out at the farm that I run, made a Facebook post about collecting donations to take down from Ohio to Roan Mountain, Tennessee.

Within two days, our community came together and packed my livestock trailer full of supplies, clothes, water and everyday essentials. My closest friend and I headed south with a plan to help others.

When we got to Tennessee and saw the destruction and damage, I knew instantly that I wanted to do more than haul one load of supplies down. We got in contact with a church back home and set up a donation drop off location so the community could continue to donate supplies and we would haul them to different areas impacted by the hurricane.

The destruction from the floods and winds was like nothing I had seen before. There were trees down everywhere and many homes and farms were destroyed. I was asking anyone I came across in Tennessee and North Carolina if they knew anyone who wouldn’t mind a couple of sawmills coming in to cut lumber to help in the rebuild process.

"It was amazing to see people from all over the country coming together to help out fellow Americans in need."

I had posted a few times on the Woodland Mills Facebook page about trying to get more people with mills together to help out. A guy from Connecticut saw my post and gave me a number to a guy who had a small farm and a wooded mountain in Bakersville, North Carolina where they were hauling hay to to help support farmers impacted by the hurricane. I gave him a call and, within a week, I had my HM130MAX set up on his farm. A guy from Florida brought up his HM130MAX, and a guy from Georgia was looking for work with his skid steer and the Good Lord brought the three of us together to this small farm in North Carolina.

We began sawing logs into lumber for those impacted by the hurricane. We were cutting mostly posts, 1x and 2x material for barn and fence repairs and animal run-in shelters. A few weeks after the first sawmill trip, another one of my good friends and his son made a trip back down with me to saw more lumber.

The guy from Georgia came back up before we got there to stack logs and clear us a place up on the mountain to set up the sawmill. The HM130MAX never missed a beat and was very productive in our efforts to help others.

All in all we made seven trips down, hauling supplies, volunteering in any way we could and sawing up lumber. It was amazing to see people from all over the country coming together to help out fellow Americans in need. I plan on going back down to saw more lumber in the near future and the HM130MAX will be put to good use!

John