Support Dilek & Furkan recover after Hurricane Helene

Dear friends, family, and community,

For those who do not know us, this is Dilek and Furkan from Swannanoa. We have two little girls and our puppy River. We have adopted River on Labor Day, not too long before the hurricane, not knowing what is yet to come. We love our place and Swannanoa River has always had a special place in our heart, so we named him after the river. Our youngest daughter had her 1st birthday coming up. We were getting ready to celebrate, who would have ever thought one morning we will wake up to have nothing left. She turned one, 3 days post-hurricane, which we didn’t even have a home to celebrate. We are raising this money for our family to recover some loss as we did not have insurance.

Our story begins with our geese waking us up in the middle of the night. They saved our lives and many of our neighbors' lives.

As floodwaters rose, we evacuated with our children and River, with the hope that we would be back at our house in the morning. When daylight hit, we saw Hurricane Helene had devastated our community in Swannanoa. We faced unimaginable loss. The storm swept through our neighborhood, leaving destruction in its wake. No one could imagine this would happen. This kind of devastation has not been seen in 1000 years.

Our home, a place we poured years of love, hard work, and dedication into; crafting every corner with detail, creating a beautiful yard and making it home for our animals — was tragically destroyed. We have lost all our animals except River. All the trees we planted were gone. Our beautiful yard was left with a lot of mud and debris.

As this devastation was a nightmare, we were thankful for our lives. We still had smiles on our faces and had to go on with what life gives. In the myst of this, we had good news to share as we were expecting our third baby. Until one day, 4 weeks post-hurricane, he lost his heartbeat. I can’t put this grieving into words.

This is our story. This was once our beautiful home, our happy place. (Our mantel decor is the one that survived and stayed untouched despite the 5 ft flood in our house) that’s one of the miracles showing that our story is yet to begin…

Your kindness and prayers will mean the world to our family as we recover. Any money collected will be used for our family to go towards what has been lost. Thank you.