Donations from Henderson students help NC Harvey victims through 'darkest time'

Rod Gray and his family, who moved to Texas earlier this year, saw their home flood during Hurricane Harvey, but that didn’t stop them from helping others after the storm hit.

“When you serve others, it does take attention off of our problems and our issues, which we have,” Gray said in August.

The family had no flood insurance because their home was not in a flood plain.

“It was pretty devastating, the fact that we pretty much lost everything,” Gray said.

Three months and $70,000 later, the family has finally returned to their home, largely thanks to generous donations.

“I saw his story on Facebook, and I said, ‘This is a good story where our school can help somebody from here,’” said fundraiser organizer Kristy Stainback.

Stainback organized students at Vance Charter School, in Gray’s hometown of Henderson, to donate gift cards to the family.

“I just saw on the news all of the devastation in Houston, and I just wanted to help in any way that I could,” said student Carly Gill.

The students gave the Grays $2,700 in gift cards while donations from three separate GoFundMe pages started by friends raised about $25,000.

“That’s really what we needed to get through the darkest time of our lives,” Gray said.

“It’s all the little things that really add up and help out,” his wife, Amie Gray said.

The students also wrote notes to the family, who visited the school Tuesday to thank the students.

“It’s absolutely incredible that they came here and that they just wanted to say thank you and that means so much to us,” said student Kolbe Earnhardt.

Tuesday’s stop at the school was just the first on the family’s thank you tour in Henderson, where many people donated to their recovery. The family also had a lot of help from the C3 Church in Clayton and many others throughout the Triangle.