How a skate park became a long-term disaster relief hub

By Kayla Masterman

When historic Hurricane Helene struck the North Carolina-Tennessee border, Valentine Reilly and Ashley Galleher didn’t hesitate to help with recovery efforts. 

What started as a simple act of checking in with each other after the storm quickly turned into State Line Resource Station, a grassroots relief effort that has since provided thousands of people with food, supplies and long-term recovery assistance, operating out of Zionville Ramp Co., Galleher’s indoor skate park in Trade, Tennessee, just over the North Carolina border. The name State Line Resource Station relates to their location and the fact they had almost an even split between people coming from both states. 

For months, the skate park’s floor became a free store, with aisles of goods stocked by an efficiently run volunteer operation. Local restaurants and other aid groups regularly set up free, hot community meals, and greeting tables helped visitors connect to other resources, like applying for federal aid or well-water testing. But as the needs of the community have changed, so has State Line’s focus. Their primary objective now is rebuilding, which includes their grant program for repairing significantly damaged property.

Shifting from relief to long-term support

ZRC has reopened as a skatepark, and State Line has moved most of the recovery effort supplies out. They have shifted their main focus to their grant program, which they launched in mid-November to help repair significantly damaged or totaled homes and small businesses. 

Galleher stated that it was difficult to let go of the on-site aid. However, with fundraising events and the grant program, they are shifting their services to better support the community. 

“We saw the long-term recovery need coming from a mile away, and we started shifting what we were doing in late November into December,” Reilly says.  

 The grant program, led by Reilly, allows State Line to reach people across the region who were significantly affected by the storm.

“We created a grant agreement, we created a grant team, we talked to a local nonprofit Mountain Mermaids who joined us and offered to fiscally sponsor the grant program,” Reilly says. 

Galleher explained that the grant program Reilly created will create a lot of impact because “at the end of the day, the most helpful thing you can do for disaster victims is give money.”

It’s important to them to not leave anyone high and dry and to continue serving the community. 

“Our goal is to continue to fundraise through concerts, events and working with other groups,” Reilly says. “That’s a big part of our long-term recovery plan.” 

They are using their five shipping containers located outside of ZRC to store building supplies. 

“It’s very basic building supplies to help rebuild the foundation of people’s homes and businesses,” Reilly says.  

In March, State Line was supporting a job site in Cove Creek, a home that took on 8 feet of water. 

“They had to gut the whole thing so we supplied two-by-fours, drywall and insulation,” Reilly says. 

They are giving the gift cards out to grant applicants and grantees and to people rebuilding. State Line’s goal is to continue taking grant applications and continue to fundraise and issue grants to every qualifying applicant. 

“Anytime someone doesn’t qualify for the grant, we do our best to serve as a resource station,” Reilly says. 

Volunteers with State Line have been grading driveways and cleaning up landslides.

More than six months after Hurricane Helene hit the Southeast, recovery continues. Find links to additional organizations and places to volunteer, donate or receive assistance on our Helene recovery resources webpage. 

State Line is also supporting another job site of a family who lost their home on the New River in Ashe County by supplying several hundred two-by-fours. In addition, the organization is working with Nanostead, a custom home builder specializing in sustainable and small-scale living solutions, to help downtown Marshall. 

State Line continues to work with rural organizations and individuals to rebuild homes and businesses, and the group has hosted fundraiser concerts and plans to host many fundraising events going forward. 

As of March, they are still 100% volunteer-run and hope to become a tax-exempt nonprofit. 

In five years, Galleher hopes State Line will be able to support additional initiatives that contribute to the overall health of the community, not just those focused on specific disasters. 

“I hope we can get to that point,” Galleher says. “It’s been cool to see how it impacted the community, how it continues to impact people.”

“We are trying to figure out how to balance our businesses and our lives and keep running State Line, but we have no end in sight,” Reilly, co-founder of State Line, says. “We want to keep helping, we want to keep doing this work. I think we’ve established a really beautiful network for both donors and people in need.” 

State Line’s start: The early days of the grassroots relief effort

State Line’s mission started modestly with Reilly and Galleher sitting at a folding table outside Zionville Ramp Co. with basic supplies like tuna, bread and water bottles on Oct. 1., 2024, several days after Helene. Within days, it grew into a full-scale operation. 

The origin of State Line can be traced back to an unlikely source — a kitten named Nacho. In August, a stray cat found itself outside of ZRC. Galleher decided to adopt the cat after it became beloved by the skateboarders, including Reilly’s own kids, as she often brings them there to skate.

A month later, Galleher and Reilly connected over talking about running a t-shirt fundraiser to help pay for Nacho’s vet bills. 

Reilly is the owner and artist of Kind Designs Printing, which has been in operation since 2012. They print eco-friendly custom t-shirts. Reilly said she and Galleher had a conversation about designing a t-shirt with Nacho on a skateboard on Sept. 21, six days before the storm. 

After Helene hit, both women realized they wanted to assist with recovery. ZRC is located in a 5,000-square-foot building with three large garage doors and high ceilings that supported scaffolding for storing supplies. Although ZRC lacked power, Galleher offered the space because it suffered no damage from the storm. 

Reilly asked Galleher, “What do we need to do this?” 

Soon, Reilly was driving down the mountain to retrieve a generator, water, gas and everything else she could think of. Once she got back from retrieving everything from Charlotte, they started State Line. 

Within 24 hours of sitting at the folding table outside, they moved inside and Reilly brought six more tables. 

“Ashley put out all the tables she had, and we had started borrowing tables from local businesses,” Reilly says. “The building was full by day three and by day four, Oct. 4, we had helicopters landing from the Army.”

Many of those who delivered supplies traveled through the mountains of Northwestern North Carolina and Northeastern Tennessee, coming from areas that weren’t as severely affected by the storm and had access to phone signals.

 “Ironically, like we were the last ones to find out what was happening in our own area,” Galleher says. 

“We pretty quickly realized that we wanted to function not just as a distribution center but as a rural distribution,” Reilly says. “We immediately started sending money and supplies to Old Fort, to Newland, to Todd, out to places all over Watauga, Avery, Ashe, Carter, Johnson counties.” 

They started working with other distribution centers and sending extra supplies that they had to those places. 

“The road going from the state line out towards Mountain City was closed until late December,” Reilly says. “So there were a lot of people who felt very isolated.” 

On top of roads being inaccessible, Reilly explains that there’s a large elderly population in the High Country and lots of people who felt very scared because they weren’t getting their needs met. Serving these people was their “goal from the beginning.” 

Galleher believes that the key to State Line’s success is having the confidence to try anything.

State Line is run 100% by volunteers like Mikaela Curry, who outside her time volunteering with State Line, is an writer, environmental scientist and climate advocate. When Helene first hit, she had damage to her house and no power or water. 

“Once those things were resolved, I was looking for somewhere to connect and provide support to folks who had it worse than me,” Curry says. 

She recalled directing traffic at State Line one day when two older women arrived seeking assistance. Volunteers gathered supplies, including water and food for both them and her kittens. The women, overwhelmed by the weight of the load, were relieved when Curry offered help unloading the supplies at her home.

Curry says one of the women remarked, “You’ll have to carry it across the creek.”

The volunteers then helped the women carry the supplies across the creek to her home. She had lost not only her mailbox but also her bridge, forcing her to cross the water to access supplies. 

“Without our offering to help unload, we would have never even known that,” Curry says.

Curry says that many at the center downplayed their own hardships, insisting others had it worse. Volunteers learned to respond with empathy.

“Just because others have it worse doesn’t mean it’s not hard for you,” Curry says. 

Building community resilience 

Reilly says that one of their top priorities was to provide a place where people felt comfortable to come in and ask for help. 

“Mountain people are strong people,” she says. “There’s a lot of pride. And it is hard for people to ask for help.”

“The thing about State Line that resonated most with me is the accepting and non-judgemental manner in which they offer help to people,” Curry says. “They offered NARCAN, menstrual supplies, people to translate information for non-English speakers, etc.. For me it has truly been the embodiment of what it means to love your neighbor.”

Not only did Statline provide supplies, they had social workers join them and do needs assessments and have someone to talk to. One of the social workers includes Bettie Hill, who continues to work with State Line. 

Every person who walked into State Line would see social workers Hill and Danielle Smith first. Hill and Smith would first get detailed information on the material items people needed, but they were also available to talk.. 

Hill shares that it was evident that many people were in a sensitive place. They didn’t provide formal therapy or counseling service but, “brief intervention questions to figure out how we meet the larger needs,” Hill says.

Hill has a private practice and was able to put her work on standby to spend most of her time supporting State Line. She got back to her more regular day-to-day practice by mid-November. Up until that point, she checked in with her clients and let them know she wasn’t gone, “but it’s really important for me to be head first into this critical need right now.” 

“This was an experience where we were all in it together. No one living up here was untouched by this,” Hill says. 

Hill explained that a lot of the time, all people needed was to tell their story. 

“We just had all these amazing women,” Galleher says. “Our operation was 90% women organizing and everyone just had good ideas.”

According to Galleher, one of the biggest reasons for State Line’s success was their proactiveness. “We were taking action and I would green light almost every idea.”

The relationships that the State Line Resource Station has are prominent.

“I’m pretty sure some of these folks are going to be in my life for a long time, and I feel really honored to know them,” Curry says.  

Reilly said Galleher is like family now and they will continue to do the work they are doing.

“I’ll brag about women all day long; we were super successful in our efforts,” Galleher says. 

State Line Resource Station is one of many community-based efforts continuing to help individuals, families and businesses recover from Hurricane Helene. Find links to additional organizations and places to volunteer, donate or receive assistance on our Helene recovery resources webpage.