Seva and Sangha after Hurricane Helene

It has taken me awhile to get back to blogging.

As most of you who are reading know, Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina hard on September 27th. I live just South of Asheville, in the next county down.

I haven’t told my story of the storm a lot. I have mostly chosen to share about how lucky I was. And how grateful I am that my home is still standing and in one piece.

I choose not to share my story today, with you. Instead, I want to focus on two yogic concepts that have been embodied by the people of Western North Carolina.

The first concept is seva, which in Sanskrit means selfless service. It comes from the Sanskrit root sev- which means to serve.

The second concept is sangha, which in Sanskrit means community.

Staff at Vaya delivering supplies

Both of these concepts have been demonstrated to a great extent in Western North Carolina since the storm hit. Western North Carolina is made up of many smaller communities, and a few larger ones such as Asheville. In their own way, each community has responded with a spirit of seva and sangha.

My day job is at a public mental health agency called Vaya Health. Vaya is tasked with managing Medicaid and the oversight of Medicaid-funded services in 32 counties in North Carolina. It has been a privilege to work for Vaya for the last three years, and through the Hurricane they have been a great source of stories and inspiration of both seva and sanga.

I have seen selfless service demonstrated through public servants at the state level allocating millions of dollars to the Hope4NC initiative. Hope4NC is a Crisis Counseling Program which will provide immediate support and crisis counseling services for responders and volunteers providing Hurricane Helene disaster response. Vaya has the duty and pleasure to contract additional counselors for this initiative.

I have seen sangha come together in many Western North Carolina communities, where people of all walks of life have supported each other. People with different political and religious worldviews put aside their differences to assist with chainsaws, generators, and water resources in the uncertain weeks following the storm. Community groups have come together, such as Vaya, to take in donations and get them out to individuals in need.

A FEMA official commented that they have never seen a natural disaster response like Western North Carolina’s. Though we come from all walks of life here in the mountains, we have put aside our differences to come together in community and selfless service.