LANSING — Patience Cole woke up the day after Hurricane Helene ravaged the Southeast thinking “we just had to do something” to help the people and pets affected.
“I watched the news and I immediately called LuEllen (Smith, co-director of Happy Feet Pet Rescue in Lansing,) with this crazy idea I had, and she agreed,” said Cole, who shares director duties at the rescue with Smith.
The crazy idea: Driving a van loaded with supplies and empty pet crates to North Carolina, with plans to return to Lansing with abandoned animals.
Cole and former Lansing resident Heidi Williams left Tuesday evening for the 600-plus-mile journey to North Carolina.
Williams, retired director of the Ingham County Animal Control & Shelter, lives in Rutherford, North Carolina, with her wife Michelle Bryant, a former Lansing police detective. The couple were in Michigan when the Helene hit.
It wasn’t a tough sell to enlist their help.
“We couldn’t just sit on our hands and watch the news,” Williams said. “Because we were both first responders and have always run toward, not away, from events like this. I still have connections to bring people together and this is the least we could do.”