North Carolina shop leads tornado response efforts

Beach Happy Market provided lunches to first responders and collected donations for tornado victims.

Tammy Blanton, owner of Beach Happy Market in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, hadn’t been in business for very long when disaster struck her local community. On February 16 a deadly tornado ripped through the area destroying dozens of homes in its 22-mile path.

Tammy wasn’t sure if her store, which sells a variety of coastal décor, vintage, and farmhouse items, was going to be standing when she got to work the next day. Her store had only been opened for six months. The tornado first touched down about half a mile from the store. When she and her 21-year old daughter, Sophie Blanton, arrived the next morning, they were relieved that the store did not sustain any damage and still had power.

“My daughter came up the idea of offering first responders coffee and to allow anyone a place to charge their phone if they were without electricity,” says Tammy.

There was not a huge response to that effort, so they thought maybe they needed to take coffee to the first responders. Because Tammy and Sophie were both posting on social media about their efforts, people in the community began reaching out to them asking “What can they do to help?”

Tammy thought, “Let’s just see if they really mean it.”

Beach Happy Market collected donations to make lunches for first responders working in the tornado affected areas of North Carolina. The store was overwhelmed by donations and volunteers.

They decided they would try to put together lunches for the first responders. Tammy and Sophie put together a list of items they would need for the lunches.

“In very short order, I had promises for sandwiches,” she says. The sandwiches had to come from a grocery store due to COVID-19 restrictions and different people would drop off 5-6 store-bought sandwiches. Others brought snack chips, baked goods from local bakeries, paper plates and napkins.

The next day Tammy and Sophie, along with a few volunteers, packed up all 50 lunches and headed out to Ocean Ridge, a development on the other side of Highway 17 that received the brunt of the damage. There were more than 50 families affected and three people died. No one was allowed into the area without a police escort.

“They [the police] saw how much stuff we had and the escorted us into the command center, and we dropped the lunches off. That was a great success and then the donations continued to come in so we decided to do a second lunch. This time there were enough donations to make 100 lunches. We took those to Ocean Ridge also.”

Tammy and Sophie set up tables outside to put the lunches together and about 12 volunteers helped on the second day.

The first lunches went mostly to sheriff’s deputies, police and firefighters. The second lunch was for anyone who was out there helping people. The store coordinated the effort with an Ocean Ridge community association board member. Then, the store continued to get more donations, and Tammy thought, they would do one last lunch.

“It just kept escalating so we did a third lunch,” say Tammy.

They made another 100 lunches and delivered 60 of them to Ocean Ridge, then went across the highway where there was even more damage and more hardship.

From that visit, Tammy and Sophie started to see firsthand how residents were affected by the tornado and learned what their needs were. “If we saw damage and saw someone out in the yard, we just jumped out of the car and talked to them. We had snack bags packed so we would hand people lunches, snack bags and gift cards.”

The gift cards, too, came from people who would stop by the store and drop off donations. They were for home improvement and grocery stores. Beach Happy Market collected $12,000 worth of gift cards and money to help the families in need. Tammy estimates the food donated amounted to more than $3,000.

One of the tornado victims was a single mother of two teenage boys who was displaced. She was able to secure temporary housing but Tammy and Sophie wanted to help her and her boys further. Through collections, Beach Happy Market has been able to give the mother several gift cards for groceries and restaurants. The store exceeded its goal of raising $6,000 to help with rent, raising $6,550. One of the volunteers that is working with the Tammy and Sophie rented a storage unit to collect furniture for the family for when they do move into a more permanent place.

Overall about 30 people ended up helping out the effort that Beach Happy Market spearheaded and organized. Tammy never anticipated the effort growing as much as it did.

“It has been pure insanity,” she says.

Social media played a big role in the success of Beach Happy Market’s efforts. When the store posted that it was collecting gift cards for tornado victims, Tammy says the store collected a gift card every two minutes for four hours straight.

“People are very generous if you just ask them,” says Tammy. “It wasn’t our vision to be involved to the degree that it has become. You just kind of roll with it.”

Tammy said the effort got overwhelming at times and she is very proud of her daughter who stuck by her and “hung in there with her.” She also is amazed at how the community put their trust in the store when it was brand new and the Blantons weren’t well known in the area.

“The main thing I want to say is that I just want to thank the community. When we put that out there we had no idea if we’d really get much of a response and they have just been full throttle on the donations,” says Tammy.

And even more than a month later, donations still are coming in. Beach Happy Market posted on March 26 that “Another angel came by the store today and brought a $500 check.”

Between the food, gift cards and cash donation, Beach Happy Market has raised $21,590 as of April 1 and that number keeps growing.