Dennis and Ann Nickerson organize donations in a relief effort for hurricane-ravaged North Carolina. He’s leading a truck convoy there next week. Robert Lowell / American Journal

Gorham businessman Dennis Nickerson will lead a convoy of trucks and trailers on Thursday, Oct. 17, loaded with donated relief supplies to hurricane-ravaged North Carolina.

Nickerson described the devastation he has seen from watching the news on Hurricane Helene’s aftermath. “If you dropped a bomb in Gorham Village, that’s how bad it is,” he said.

The entrepreneur, who owns construction firm Affordable Builders, woke up Saturday morning determined to help. “I’m going to do something,” he said.

Dennis Nickerson handles donated supplies headed for North Carolina. Robert Lowell / American Journal

Nickerson posted a sign outside his Gorham home on Narragansett Street seeking donations to help hurricane victims, and the outpouring from the community has been nonstop. “There’s been a steady flow,” he said about donors. “Our phones haven’t stopped.”

He organized a truck convoy to transport the supplies, to be delivered to Crest View Baptist Church, in Canton, North Carolina. Nickerson said the church is serving as a hub where first responders will pick up supplies and deliver them.

Nickerson said churches in North Carolina are feeding up to 1,500 people every day. “We’re trying to get supplies to them,” he said.

Two local companies – Dearborn Brothers Construction in Buxton and Great Falls Construction in Gorham – each are providing a truck with trailer and driver for the convoy. Nickerson’s stepson, Joey Daigle, and his father, Dan, of Mountain Side Powersports in Wilton will join the convoy with a truck and trailer along with Nickerson’s two pickups pulling 24-foot trailers.

Donations are coming in from as far away as Fort Kent. “If I had to, I could find a tractor trailer,” Nickerson said.

Each of the five trucks will have two drivers. The convoy will roll out early next Thursday on the 18- to 20-hour journey.

Nickerson said they need more donations of nonperishable foods and will accept all donations through noon on Wednesday, Oct. 16.

An unidentified Scarborough company contributed $1,000 in supplies, Plummer’s Hardware in Gorham donated two generators, and an unidentified woman dropped off 100 blankets she had just bought at Walmart and said she’d return with more, if she could.

Donated items have included bottled water, flashlights, diapers, baby formula, pet food, sleeping bags and a tent. “We’ll take anything,” said Nickerson’s wife, Ann. But she said they do not need any more used clothes.

Nickerson’s neighbor Mark Curtis, of Gorham Sand and Gravel, and his wife, Becky, are pitching in with organizational work.

Stephanie Keene of Hearts and Horses in Buxton, who was dropping off donations Tuesday, said the community always pulls together. “I’m grateful they’re doing this for all the people who are suffering – it’s fantastic,” she said.