With Samaritan's Purse based in western North Carolina, an area pulverized by Hurricane Helene, the charity's chief operating officer, Edward Graham, told Newsmax on Friday that it won't stop helping until the job is finished.
"Western North Carolina was devastated," Graham, grandson of the late Billy Graham and son of Franklin Graham, the charity's CEO, told "Finnerty" and guest host Rob Astorino.
"Everything from down around Asheville, where my dad was born and raised, up here to Boone, where I live in the northern corner, just got hammered — communities destroyed. Entire cities are gone, and I don't know if they'll ever be rebuilt. It's that bad.
"But we've been going out and doing work orders. This is where churches and local communities and homes call in and say, 'Hey, I need chainsaw work. I need a mud-out.' And we've done thousands of those. We have over 900 left.
"Our volunteers go in and do all this for free, and we want people to know they're not forsaken, they're not forgotten about. We want them to get quickly back into their homes," he said.
Graham said Samaritan's Purse is transition to rebuilds, helping those whose homes were destroyed but were underinsured or uninsured.
"In this case, almost everybody doesn't have insurance. So we've committed to building over a thousand homes that [are] stick-built and mobile homes, where we'll get people back in, and it's going to be a long process," he said.
"It's going to take years, but we're not going anywhere. This is where I'm from, and we're going to be here until the job's done."
Graham also mentioned Samaritan's Purse's "Operation Christmas Child," which delivers toys and school supplies in shoeboxes while spreading the Gospel to children across the world.
"We've sent over 200 million shoeboxes over the years. And this year alone, we're looking to send 12 million. And they'll go to about 120 different countries around the world, where each kid in their own language not only gets a gift — sometimes for the first time — but they also get to hear the Gospel clearly in their own language."
"So it's about the hope of Jesus Christ and letting these kids know they're not forsaken. They're not forgotten," he said.
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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