PORTSMOUTH, Va. — When Hurricane Helene devastated parts of Western North Carolina in September 2024, Trey Stephens was living and working in Asheville.
He was working at a small restaurant when the storm hit, leaving widespread damage and debris across the area.
“There was a lot of structural damage and there was a lot, a lot of trees and debris down to where we could barely even walk out of our front door,” Stephens said.
Stephens said seeing the destruction around his community made him want to find a way to help.
“It hurt. It was, it was sad, and I immediately wanted to say like, what can I do?” Stephens said.
That opportunity came when Mercy Chefs set up a relief kitchen in a hospital parking lot in Asheville. Stephens joined the effort, helping prepare and serve meals to people recovering from the storm.
Mercy Chefs founder and CEO Gary LeBlanc said the organization was in Florida when Helene hit, but quickly began receiving calls for help from communities across the Southeast.
“The next day my phone started ringing. Then it was people in Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, and North Carolina,” LeBlanc said.
LeBlanc said hiring local workers is part of Mercy Chefs’ response during disasters, particularly when people lose work because of a storm.
“Part of our tradition. We hire locally and so we're in an area like that we look for chefs and professionals that are out of work because of the storm,” LeBlanc said. “Trey got to come and work with us and we immediately were in love with him and he immediately fell in love with the mission and with our team.”
Stephens said the team prepared about 1 million meals, with many coming from the Black Mountain kitchen.
The experience ultimately changed the direction of Stephens’ career.
Today, he is the managing chef at the Portsmouth Community Kitchen, where he helps prepare meals for charities and people in need across Portsmouth and Hampton Roads.
For Stephens, the work is about more than preparing food.
“To be able to make a meal and give it to someone and see their eyes light up on a really bad day or to even work with other volunteers and see their eyes light up being able to give someone a meal and share that experience, that's what really drew me to Mercy Chefs,” Stephens said.
Two years after Helene, Stephens is still serving meals with the same purpose that first drew him to disaster relief in Asheville.
Click here to see how we use AI at WTKR News 3.
