SOUTHEASTERN N.C. — A worldwide organization focused on feeding people during crises will be set up on Pleasure Island Wednesday and Thursday, as it assesses where help is needed in Brunswick County.
READ MORE: Volunteers wanted: The world network of chefs comes to Wilmington for Florence response
World Central Kitchen is providing free meals to the community over the next two days, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Help Center, located at the corner of Raleigh and Third streets in Carolina Beach.
Michelle “Mama” Rock of T’Geaux Boys food truck will be serving étouffée and red beans and rice, according to WCK’s Sandie Orsa.
Food from WCK distribution sites are open to everyone — residents, first responders, construction and line workers.
The organization deploys in areas facing natural disasters or in war-torn countries to ensure no one faces hunger during stressful situations. After the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the nonprofit was founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, whose restaurant group operates 31 eateries worldwide.
To date, it has served people in need to the tune of 400 million meals worldwide as WCK approaches its 15th year anniversary.
It’s not Orsa’s first time in the trenches in Wilmington. She was the first person to sign up to volunteer when WCK came to her hometown during 2018’s Hurricane Florence; WCK’s operations here open the 2022 documentary “We Feed People,” directed by Ron Howard.
She was on the ground again Tuesday with volunteers in Carolina Beach, handing out sandwiches, fruit and water to residents and vacationers stuck in their homes. She saw cars and homes encapsulated by water.
Pine Valley Market owner Christi Ferretti provided the sandwiches — a restaurant partner who has worked with WCK since Florence.
“My team has made 100 sandwiches so far,” Ferretti said Wednesday, with another 200 on the way.
Orsa is deploying teams currently to send out the rest of the sandwiches into Brunswick County, which took the brunt of Monday’s tropical cyclone, in effect dumping upward of 20 inches of rain in portions of the region. Houses and roadways are still flooded, with multiple road closures and collapses due to the storm. A Brunswick County representative said roughly 130 roads countywide were impacted.
“Specifically, we are looking at areas like Southport, Sunset Beach and Oak Island,” Orsa said of Wednesday’s scouting mission. These regions have been cut off from the rest of the county.
“Stoney Creek [in Leland] got hit pretty hard, as they did during Florence as well,” she added.
Some houses there are surrounded by 16 inches of water.
Orsa and her colleagues are looking at these areas of acute need to tackle first — “smaller pockets of people who simply can’t get out of their house, or if they’re immobile and don’t have a vehicle,” she said.
MORE: Stranded: Locals, tourists stuck as flooding overwhelms coastal regions
WCK will assess if a public distribution site will be set up in Brunswick County in coming days. Orsa said she has been in contact with the fire chief in Southport, as well as Leslie Stanley of Brunswick County Voluntary Organizations Active Disaster. It consists of a collective group of local nonprofits to assist with underserved communities and families (anyone who wants help from VOAD — food, clothing, moving furniture, clean up, and more — can call Brunswick County Emergency Management at 910-253-5383).
“I’ve heard community efforts have already been underway with churches distributing food and meals moving through the Southport Fire Department,” Orsa said.
WCK is looking to supplement the aid and Orsa has reached out to other restaurant partners to find out how and where to deploy them. This includes Chef Keith Rhodes, whose Catch restaurant and food trucks operated with WCK previously.
“We have Poor Piggy’s food truck on board, too,” Orsa said. “They all helped serve meals during Florence, so it’s kind of coming full circle. This definitely isn’t their first rodeo.”
WCK teams operate in multiple places worldwide currently. They recently wrapped up in Bangladesh, due to flooding, and are finishing up a line fire in California. A Wilmington WCK response corps member is on his way back from Hurricane Francine in New Orleans to help assess Brunswick County, according to Orsa.
Teams also are also in Poland and the Czech Republic, responding to flooding, as well as continuing their efforts in Ukraine and Gaza. Not only are the workers overcoming treacherous conditions, many have faced danger — including a Russian missile strike in April 2022, which left four WCK workers wounded.
Earlier this spring the outfit lost seven of its team members, when three Israeli air strikes hit a convoy of its aid vehicles moving through Gaza, killing the humanitarian workers. Included was Zomi Frankcom, who helped in Wilmington during Hurricane Dorian in August 2019.
“She was truly electric,” Ferretti wrote in a memoriam to Frankcom in April. “No matter the stress level, she was beaming and excited to be right there in that moment.”
WCK paused operations in Gaza briefly but has resumed distribution in its community kitchens.
“We found that the Palestinians really wanted to continue to serve their communities, despite what has transpired,” Orsa said.
More information will be released in coming days as to whether WCK will have distribution sites outside of Carolina Beach. Orsa said a volunteer call for help hasn’t been released yet but could be as well.
“It’s actually how I found out about World Central Kitchen,” she added.
After volunteering in 2018, Orsa was hired as a core staff member and has worked her way through various positions, from finance to distribution to relief — “a Jill of all trades,” she quipped.
“I actually found out about the opportunity through Port City Daily,” Orsa added. “I was on my couch, scrolling through Facebook, since my office, Wells Fargo Advisors, was closed here in Wilmington, and the post from Port City Daily said, ‘Hey, this organization’s in town and calling for volunteers, call this person,’ and the rest was history. It gets me choked up now, thinking about it — six years later, they can’t get rid of me.”
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