A Mighty Response: Student Bar Association and Others Combine Forces to Help Victims of Hurricane Helene
After Hurricane Helene caused significant damage across several southeastern states in late September, it didn’t take long for various Williamsburg-area organizations to coordinate efforts collecting supplies for those in need.
And it took even less time for William & Mary Law School’s Citizen Lawyers to answer the call.
Susan Tarley, a local attorney on the Virginia State Bar’s Bar Council put out a call on Wednesday, October 9 to collect supplies for survivors of the hurricane. With the Bar Council’s meeting being held in Williamsburg, Tarley knew she could work with local attorneys and others from the Bar Council to gather needed supplies.
The Law School’s Student Bar Association under the leadership of Liv Menosky ’25 and Emily Buttolph ’25, and Professor Nicole Medved ’18 of the Immigration Clinic, then collaborated to collect supplies in the Law School lobby on Wednesday and Thursday of that week for delivery that Friday morning. Local Williamsburg attorneys worked with the Virginia State Bar to coordinate the transport of materials to communities in need.
“Our contributions came from Council members, Virginia State Bar staff, and William & Mary Law Students, as well as lawyers from the 18th and 9th Districts,” Tarley said. “The response was overwhelming. In fact, we had to stop accepting donations because we simply didn’t have enough vehicles to carry everything.”
Medved and SBA students themselves loaded the large number of supplies gathered at the Law School and were ready to roll, but had to pause for one last donation.
“Another student, Madalyn “Maddy” Sullivan [’25], met me at my car just after all of these items were loaded into my car and added another trunk full of supplies,” Medved said. “I am so proud of the response of our law students and our law school community for their compassion and excitement to help.”
The final tally of the VSB’s efforts included three-and-one-half packed mid-size SUVs and one fully loaded pickup truck. The donations included nearly everything imaginable—canned and boxed foods, pet supplies, shovels, a generator, gas cans, baby clothes, toiletries, paper goods, buckets, gloves, baby bottles, sterilized nursing containers, and much more.
“I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who responded so swiftly to our last-minute call for donations,” Tarley said. “A special shout-out to our amazing drivers—Will Egen, Grant Back, Brett Marston, and Bruce Russell—who generously filled their vehicles and transported the donations to Southwest Virginia.”
Tarley also gave a special thanks to Williamsburg Honda for stepping up and helping transport the final batch of donations.