As Hurricane Laura bore down on the Gulf Coast last week, staff members at the Houston Dynamo and Houston Dash knew that people in Southeast Texas were going to be in need. Although the storm missed Houston, communities along the Texas-Louisiana border like Orange, Lake Charles and others weren’t so fortunate.
Within hours of the hurricane’s landfall Wednesday night, staff finalized plans to host a food drive to aid victims of the storm, and by Saturday morning, everything was in place. The first cars began to arrive at BBVA Stadium shortly after 9am, filled with cans and boxes of food, bottles of water and other supplies.
Dash and Dynamo players came by after their teams’ training sessions wrapped up, donating supplies of their own and helping collect and load supplies, many wearing shirts emblazoned with the Club’s motto, Hold It Down.
Over the course of the day, nearly seven tons of food, water, drinks and supplies were collected. Club partners such as Pepsi and Patria Energy Drink chipped in with donations, along with hundreds of Houstonians. The donations were so plentiful that they filled a large box truck to the brink of overflowing.
A common sentiment expressed by donors – many who are Dynamo and Dash fans and some who were simply Houstonians who heard about the drive on the news and wanted to help – was the desire to return the favor after so many communities came to our aid after Hurricane Harvey.
“When we talk internally about what Hold It Down means to us, it really comes down to being there for your neighbor and being able to count on one another,” said Club President John Walker, who stopped by to donate supplies. “I wasn’t here during Harvey, but that kind of community spirit and toughness is apparent even to a newcomer. Our stadium was used as a donation center then, so it seemed logical to use a similar setup to try and help folks this time.”
Club staff spent most of Monday organizing the donations onto pallets, and on Tuesday morning they delivered the donations to the Houston Food Bank, who will help distribute the food and supplies to organizations in the communities most affected.
“I’m so happy that we were able to put this drive together and help so many people. We knew that people were going to be in need after this storm hit, and we wanted to be able to react and help as quickly as possible,” said Valerie Holland, the Director of Dynamo Charities and the club’s Director of Community Relations. “One of the great things about sports is the ability to rally people together for a common cause. In Houston, that desire to help people in need comes naturally to people anyway, so we were just happy to play a small role in coordinating it.”
