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Holland companies packing trucks for hurricane relief

Posted at 10:18 PM, Sep 13, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-13 22:18:11-04

HOLLAND, Mich. -- A manufacturing company in Holland is collecting supplies to send south to help hurricane victims after Harvey and Irma.

GNS America and Haggerty Logistics sponsored a "Pack the Truck" drive Wednesday afternoon. GNS operations manager Josh Shaw said a bunch of employees came to management after seeing the destruction left behind by Hurricane Harvey in Texas - and later Hurricane Irma in Florida - and wanted to send help to the devastated communities.

"We have a very passionate group of people who believe in supporting the community," Shaw said. "So when they came to the management team and said they wanted to help, we jumped on board."

Shaw says they have close ties to the community in Beaumont, TX, which is about 85 miles east of Houston. One thing they're working on getting more of is animal feed for the livestock.

"With everything under water, Texas is still a very large agricultural community, so they're hurting on [animal] feed," Shaw said.

Holland community "Pack the Truck" hurricane relief poster.

After two more donation drives Friday and Saturday, GNS hopes to have enough supplies to fill two trucks to send to both Texas and Florida.

"West Michigan is an awesome community that gives not only to needs around us, but even outside of that, so we're just asking for that kind of support," said Jack Dykstra, GNS America organizational development manager. "It's good to see that there's a care and concern from people in manufacturing who are going to work everyday but thinking in the back of their head, 'what can I do to help?' So it's good to see that, and it's good to see that they came up with the suggestion to do this."

In addition to animal feed, they're looking to fill the trucks with cleaning supplies, bottled water, canned food, gloves, bleach and utility knives.

They'll be holding another drive at the GNS America at 13341 Quincy St. Friday from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Donations can also be made to a GoFundMepage they set up.