In the wake of one of the worst natural disasters in Texas history, Georgetown-area residents and local businesses sprang into action to aid small cities that sustained damage as a result of Hurricane Harvey. It only took Georgetown local Robert Pandya and other volunteers about 36 hours to organize GTX Relief Caravan, a group that aims to deliver donated relief supplies from Georgetown to small communities in need, particularly to areas outside of Houston proper. Their first target was Richmond, a city with a population of about 12,000 that is county seat in Fort Bend County, which encompasses the region just southwest of Houston and is among the areas hit hardest by flood damage. Volunteers asked for donations of diapers, baby food, flashlights, work gloves, canned food, bottled water, and new packages of socks and underwear. They set up drop-off areas for people to bring their donations to. Georgetown residents jumped at the chance to help, Pandya said. “Knowing the heart and character of the community, it was relatively easy to get together,” he said. “Once word gets out for something, people sort of stand up to participate and help.” Courtesy GTX Relief Caravan set up donation drop-off points to collect items such as clothing, bottled water and toiletries.[/caption] On Sept. 2, just a week after Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast, Pandya and the rest of the caravan of volunteers used their own vehicles to transport around 8,000 pounds of donated items more than 300 miles to Richmond. GTX Relief Caravan partnered with the local school district to distribute the goods. Lamar ISD’s Common Threads program, which allows district families facing hard times to receive donated clothing, shoes, backpacks and other items was their program of choice. Common Threads typically holds their main drive at the beginning of each school year, but the impact of Hurricane Harvey in the area made them shift gears to focus on hurricane relief. “A lot of these kids, who are low-income kids, live in areas that are more susceptible to flooding,” Pandya said. “Even if their homes weren’t damaged, their parents may work at places that are closed for two weeks, which affects their income. It’s all just a big domino effect.” Common Threads volunteers in Richmond helped unload donations from the GTX Relief Caravan vehicles.[/caption] Pandya said that while national attention and media coverage typically focus on large cities during natural disasters, he was concerned about the surrounding communities not receiving enough help from nonprofits in Harvey’s wake. “Knowing that that's how the world turns in these little towns that typically get shorted, that’s where I wanted to focus on [for GTX Relief Caravan],” he said. One reason GTX Relief Caravan chose the Common Threads program, situated in Richmond, was because it was a smaller town on the edge of a large city, just like Georgetown, that had sustained significant flood damage. Pandya also has familial roots in the area. Pandya’s father, who died three months ago, lived in Fort Bend County. “This is something he would have wanted to see,” Pandya said. Common Threads is a donation-based organization to provide Lamar ISD families in need with new and gently-used items.[/caption] Pandya is planning one more trip to Richmond on Thursday, Sept. 7, to drop off donated items that didn’t fit in the first trip, and to handout gift cards to families affected by Harvey. He hopes the GTX Relief Caravan will grow into a program to continue to help people in small towns. Pandya worries relief efforts will be treated “like a flash in the pan” once people get tired of hearing about Harvey. “For people who aren't living the Harvey story, things were back to normal by Tuesday [after the hurricane hit]. For people on the ground, it’s going to be months and years of recovery— and some people won’t recover,” he said. “This is going to be a long effort, and it’s really easy to get about the small towns. Those little towns get forgotten really fast.”