KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — As first responders and National Guard troops handle rescue operations and cleanup in the wake of Hurricane Helene in the Southeast United States, Southwest Michigan residents are banding together to lend a helping hand.

“(I’m getting a) phone call pretty much every 10 minutes of ‘I got this; would this help?’ We’re going to fill up this trailer, there’s no doubt in my mind,” Tom Elsman of Sporty’s Pub in Paw Paw said.

A U-Haul trailer has been parked outside of his pub for the last day, already brimming with donated food, water and clothing.

“I got two friends in North Carolina, they got their house direct pretty good. They are not in the worst-hit areas but they got pretty decent damaged though,” Elsman said.

He said the idea to gather supplies originated with longtime customer and friend Sean Collins, and what started as a conversation in the pub soon turned into a real-life aid mission. Once packed, Collins will take the trailer to a distribution point in North Carolina, where the supplies will be collected and shuttled out to communities cut off by the hurricane’s damage.

Elsman said the pair couldn’t do it without the people of Paw Paw.

“This is a town of about roughly 3,500 people. And honestly, what I am doing is opening a lock. I’m unlocking a door and letting people come in. So these people are opening their hearts, opening their wallets, opening their generosity to our fellow man that is in need right now,” he said.

Other Michiganders are also taking up the call. Harley Town and cousins Kyle and Jake Cartwright loaded up their trailer with donated supplies and tools and set off from Hartford Thursday morning. They arrived Friday afternoon in Coffee County in southeastern Georgia.

Town and the Cartwrights are members of the car community with social media connections that linked them up with other like-minded people, one of them living in Georgia.

Kyle Cartwright said the initial idea was to help a friend.

“Let’s load some chainsaws and stuff them in the truck and see what we can do to go down and help. It turned into, ‘Let’s see if anyone wants to donate some water and whatnot to see what we can take down.’ It turned into us needing a trailer that we jam-packed full of supplies to take down,” he said in a video call while driving to Georgia with the team.

In the last few days, the trio worked with their wives, Alicia Town and Robin and Lauren Cartwright, to gather donations from people and businesses in Caledonia, Middleville, Hartford, Hastings, Plainwell and Watervliet.

The group said the goal is to show what a good person does regardless of differences — a moral that Elsman echoed.

“You see with everybody that it doesn’t matter what side of politics or your thoughts are on other things at the same time, everyone is coming together as one right now,” he said.

Elsman said extra donations will be dropped off with the Mattawan Fire Department and a donation drive in Portage.