Lauren Dodgin, a university program specialist at WCU’s Biltmore Park instructional site in Asheville, woke up to her town torn to pieces.

Hurricane Helene ripped through Black Mountain, taking down trees, destroying homes and devastating people.

Dodgin’s daughter and WCU freshman Kalila Dodgin saw a much more fortunate sight. Power was out in most places and cell service was scarce, but for the most part, Cullowhee was intact. Still, Kalila didn’t want to stay in those friendly confines during this disaster.

She wanted to help. They both did — because Black Mountain is home.

“We did tough work together. We laughed some. It’s not good, but it’s not totally bleak out there,” Lauren said. “There are some sunshiny moments, and I think you always feel stronger with your family by your side.”

For Lauren, the first few days following Helene were a whirlwind. Nearly everybody was in shock as they looked around their homes. Sirens blared throughout town as first responders rushed to help the many in need.

Hotels opened their doors and cooked food for folks who had lost their homes in the storm. Just hours after Helene ravaged the area, people were helping other people.

“It was this instant realization of like ‘OK, that’s what we’re going to do,’” Lauren said, “‘We’re going to do this together.’”

A few days later, Lauren became a vital part of that community effort.

After part of Interstate 26 had opened up a way for residents to get to Charlotte, Black Mountain mayor Mike Sobol handed Lauren money for supplies, and he wasn’t the only one to trust her. People kept handing her money.

Over the next few days, she drove to Charlotte, Shelby and Gastonia and back to Black Mountain, filling her Mercedes station wagon with food, lanterns, propane tanks and more with the help of her cousin who lives in Charlotte.

That continued until donations started pouring in, but Lauren didn’t stop serving her community there. She kept on — with the help of her WCU friends. When she was looking for maps in a GPS-less town, the Asheville Chamber of Commerce, a WCU community partner, pitched in.

When she was looking for clean drinking water for her community, a WCU alumna provided a contact for a nonprofit that provides mobile water treatment.

“It’s not an exaggeration that there were days that Western kept me going, and it was just like I’m out of cards in the deck to play, I need an assist, and it was always there,” Lauren said. “Boy, what a well of expertise to tap into. We do logistics really well. We have to.”

Kalila wasn’t alone, either. Many of her WCU friends, who also grew up around Black Mountain and Swannanoa, wanted to make the trip back home to help. But when they turned onto the exit to Swannanoa and saw the damage, reality hit.

Not long after Kalila had brought her stuff back home, she went right to work. The WCU freshman went to a local hotel to sort clothes and donations with a friend from high school and shelters.

She loved it.

“Just working with all these people is a core memory. This is something that’s obviously going to shape me for the rest of my life,” Kalila said.

“I’ve even considered changing my major from forensic anthropology to disaster management because I love being able to work with these people that I grew up with and that I look up to,” she later added.

And knowing there was a second home waiting for her in Cullowhee made things a lot easier.

“You’re coming back from these terrible places and situations, and you’re just like, ‘I’ve got some semblance of home somewhere,’” Kalila said. “I can keep going and keep working because I get to go back to this wonderful place that feels like home, and it sort of made everything else seem less scary and intense.”

A lot was lost when Helene wrecked through Western North Carolina, but the community wasn’t. And over the last few weeks, it’s meant more than a lot.

“Everything. It’s everything,” Lauren said. “We are living in an age when loneliness is on the rise. I don’t think people have been lonely in Black Mountain and Swannanoa because we have this period of time where your community is quite literally your survival unless you were extremely well prepared going into this.”

Most people weren’t. Helene came as a surprise to many across the South, but what wasn’t was people’s love for one another.

That’s what community is, and it doesn’t fade away.

“Nobody loves your town and the people in it like your town and the people in it,” Lauren said. “The people that will be there in the end when all of the press is gone, when all of the donations have stopped, when everything else has ceased, no more federal dollars, no more grants, no more anything, we’re still the folks that are going to be there, and we’re still the folks that are going to be rebuilding these communities.”