When Gabriel Tawiah ’25 arrived in Asheville on Jan. 1, 2025 to volunteer, it had been more than three months since Hurricane Helene had dumped a historic level of rain in the region. He asked someone from the area when they thought things would return to normal.

“They said it will be after like 20 years,” says Tawiah. “It’s a huge thing. I saw it for myself. A lot of houses were down, and they haven’t even started building back up many of those houses.”

Tawiah, an economics and sociology and anthropology major from Ghana, learned about opportunities to support local efforts through the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation newsletter as well as retreats the organization held. As a Bonner Scholar at Wofford, Tawiah receives the foundation’s newsletter each month in his email inbox.

“I had a block of five days open between a Christmas break trip to New York and the start of Interim, so the service opportunity came at the perfect time,” says Tawiah. “The Sullivan Foundation provided us lodging in the Lake Junaluska area so that we could spend less time commuting and more time serving.”

The organizations Tawiah partnered with were Blunt Pretzels, a Bavarian pretzel shop in Swannanoa that has regularly given free meals to the community; Equal Plates Project, an organization that purchases produce from small farms to use in meals for those in need; and Grassroots AID Partnership, a group that provides aid to vulnerable communities in crisis.

Tawiah worked behind the scenes preparing and cooking food, providing manual labor on the farm and filling boxes with supplies.

“Every hand offered added up to a substantial operation,” says Tawiah. “They have a huge community there where everyone is willing to help.”

Tawiah also enjoyed a surprise Wofford reunion with Dr. Kaye Savage, director of the Goodall Environmental Studies Center and professor of environmental studies. Savage was in Swannanoa on sabbatical when Hurricane Helene hit. Tawiah says Savage had been regularly serving Blunt Pretzels after Hurricane Helene’s devastation, and her energy and dedication to the area’s recovery was reflective of the local group of volunteers with whom he spent time.

“They have amazing energy, which was a really good thing,” says Tawiah. “They were so ready to help, and it put me in the spirit to help as well.”