The late-September arrival of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina was a big worry for Melissa Bobka.  

“Being a mom, I watched the weather, that’s what we do in Minnesota,” she says.

Bobka’s 26-year-old son Reed Tran, who moved to Asheville about a year ago, kept in touch by phone — even as the storm began sweeping across the state.

“Every message that came out, he started it with ‘I’m still safe,’ which to me as a mom was code for, it’s really bad here,” she recalls. “The parking lot for his own apartment was completely submerged. Cars were on top of each other.”

Bobka — a financial planner from Waconia, says she couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

So, she came up with a plan of her own that she shared with a handful of people.

“She said she was going to go and haul a truck down,” explains Joe Lemmerman, the owner of Kenny’s T-Road Tavern in New Germany. “Haul a bunch of goodies down to North Carolina.”

Bobka’s original idea was to rent a small trailer.

She mentioned the plan to her car dealer in Minnetonka, to Lemmerman — who is one of her clients — and her chiropractor in Excelsior.

“And I told them that my son lives in Asheville and has lost everything and so very quickly, they said what can we do to help,” Bobka says.  

The chiropractor sent out a note to numerous current and former patients.

Soon, the hallways and other spaces were filled with donated items.

“The response was completely overwhelming,” declares Dr. Marc Hope, with Excelsior Chiropractic. “It was crazy. We had a hard time even getting in, navigating the office a couple of days because there was so many things, generators, blankets. It was really cool.”

The deluge of donations came after all three businesses began to spread the word online about Bobka’s trip.

She returned to her car after an appointment to find it filled to the windows with donations.

Lemmerman went one step further.

“I said I got this Octoberfest thing coming up,” he remembers. “You bring a truck out there and we’ll fill that truck.”

By October 21^st — Bobka found her herself driving solo to Asheville in a 26-foot-long truck, packed with donated items.

She saved a few items for her son, but says she dropped off most of the donations at two service organizations in the Asheville area that supply people with clothing, blankets, and other desperately needed necessities.  

Bobka says her son’s apartment was mold-infested, and his genetic testing business was flooded out and destroyed.

She says the only thing he was able to save was his car, parked in an area above the flooding.  

But he was alive and safe.

Lemmerman calls Bobka “a rockstar.”

“That was pretty good for somebody, anybody to do that,” he declares. “She took it on herself to do it and go down and help people. It’s pretty cool.”

Dr. Hope says he and his office were happy to contribute.

“I feel Minnesotans are always very welcome to offer help,” Hope adds. “Something that is real, that they see the destruction and people suffering.”

Now back at home, Bobka says she is grateful to those who stepped up.

“People are really good,” she exclaims. “Having gone through the dark days, there is a very bright light around it. It shows the goodness of people. Everybody wants to help.”