Five years ago, the northeast Nebraska community of Wayne was hit hard by an EF-4 tornado.
In the aftermath of the tornado, which struck the industrial area of the community in October of 2013, almost 100 Nebraska communities came into town, bringing fire trucks, rescue vehicles and equipment to help with cleanup efforts, and thousands of volunteers from surrounding communities helped in the days and weeks that followed to help Wayne pick up from the storm’s damage.
Now, a local webmaster wants to “Return The Favor” to help those communities who were impacted by the recent severe weather that saw widespread flooding and wind damage in just about all of the eastern and central parts of Nebraska.
“I’ve been wanting to do something to help out those who helped us back in 2013, and I found the answer in my closet,” Michael Carnes, publisher of WayneAmerica.com said.
Carnes said he hopes to provide 5,000 T-shirts (and other necessities) to people with clothing needs in the communities impacted by the recent storm.
“We all buy T-shirts for one reason or another, whether it’s to support the local high school team or to have some kind of memory from a rock concert we attended, and it seems I had a lot of those T-shirts that just never get into the rotation with the other clothing I normally wear,” he said.
By the time he had taken all those T-shirts out of his closet, he had a pile of 50 that served as the start of what he hopes will be a large donation of clothing for people who escaped the recent floods with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.
While T-shirts are the focus, he said the donation effort will take in any kind of clean, gently-worn clothing, as well as other necessities like toiletries or bottled water. Main Street Garage, located at Seventh and Main streets in Wayne, is serving as a drop-off point for donations, and Carnes said he will take donations in the alley driveway of his home at 109 West Fourth Street.
“The goal is to bring in 5,000 T-shirts of all sizes, from youth to adult XXL and bigger,” Carnes said. “It’s an opportunity for us, as citizens of Wayne, to give back to those communities who came in our time of need five years ago and helped us out. The photos and video that local news outlets have provided of all the damage that has taken place is just heartbreaking to see, and the city of Wayne somehow managed to avoid a lot of that damage. I want to help out those who are dealing with all the challenges that lie ahead and offer whatever support that I can.”
Shirts can be dropped off at Main Street Garage, Journey Christian Church, Viaero, Quality Foods, Pac N Save and Magnuson Hopkins Eye Care in Wayne.
