As the death toll from Hurricane Helene tops 250 people, members of a Rindge church said they felt helpless just watching the news, and decided to do something to help.

On Friday and Saturday, volunteers from the Vineyard Christian Church in Rindge, as well as other area churches, collected canned goods and toiletries to package, wrap, pack in a tractor-trailer parked in the plaza at Market Basket and send to North Carolina hurricane victims. The drive raised $18,386 in cash donations, as well as 25 wooden pallets, stacked as tall as the average person, with boxes of donations.

The truck, belonging to Jewell Specialized, Inc., and driven by Chris and Adam Jewell, began its journey to North Carolina over the weekend, and arrived on Sunday to deliver the donations to the Boone, N.C., area.

The idea was the brainchild of church member Traci Juntunen.

“We all felt really helpless,” Juntunen said. “We said, ‘What can we do, what can we do?’ ”

The kind of donation drive the Vineyard Christian Church organized isn’t new to Juntunen. She said the idea came to her from work she did during the relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At the time, Juntunen was living in South Carolina, but said she had family in New Hampshire who also organized a similar drive, so she knew it could be done. Fellow church member Charmaine Peard jumped on as an organizer, and the group was off.

After making several calls to relief organizations, they decided to work with Samaritan’s Purse, a relief organization that has been responding to both Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and Hurricane Milton in Florida.

“They’re a well-known organization down South. A lot of people have heard of it now because of this disaster,” Peard said.

After arranging locations to accept donations and unloading capabilities, the church partnered with Market Basket to host the drive, including having Market Basket displays of needed items and prestocked carts and baskets for set prices, ready for donation.

“I want to give a shoutout to Market Basket. They were nothing short of spectacular,” Juntunen said. “And the community. For our little town of Rindge, I’m absolutely amazed at the support. Everyone came through to fill this truck, and we want to thank them from the bottom of our hearts. We couldn’t do it without them. All I want to say is there were a lot of small businesses in the community that really came together for this. There were a lot of donations from small businesses to help us get marketing done, and signs and trucking. It’s important to recognize them. These are small communities that came together for a big cause.”

For information on Samaritan’s Purse, visit samaritanspurse.org.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.