Matt McSwain had no plans to start a nonprofit in late September. He just had a mission: help the people of Western North Carolina. Operation Helo started as a nameless operation of patchwork pilots in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene. A friend of McSwain’s was involved with Operation Airdrop, a nonprofit that uses small bush planes to get supplies to areas affected by a natural disaster, and asked him to help.

Those planes could only do so much, McSwain said. The hard-to-reach mountains and valleys covered in mudslides needed something more precise. They needed helicopters. He gathered volunteer pilots in the small Hickory Regional Airport, where index cards held coordinates and what those stranded in Helene’s aftermath needed: baby formula, insulin, rescue. Those became pilots’ mission slips. Within two days, that makeshift operation became the nonprofit Operation Helo, an organization dedicated to “bringing help and hope from the skies.” It led 4,000 helicopter missions and 450 evacuations and responded to more than 2,000 distress calls. After a callout for warm clothing as the mountains experienced the year’s first wave of cold weather, the organization received 61,000 overnighted Amazon packages. “Amazon called me,” McSwain said, “and told me we had officially clogged the system in Charlotte.” About 20% of those packages flew out in helicopters, he said, and the rest were delivered through Samaritan’s Purse. Operation Helo, partnering with Toys4WNC and other organizations, has provided blankets, warm gear, food, campers and toys to Appalachian residents piecing their lives together as the holiday season passes.

“I’m not doing anything that anybody else wouldn’t do,” McSwain said. “We just have the platform to be able to carry this forward.” With opened roads, leftover funds and eager volunteers, he and co-founder Eric Robinson have pivoted several times, but the mission remains the same: help.