Lumberton resident who has been in various shelters since

LUMBERTON, N.C. -- A handful of volunteers wait outside the nondescript warehouse as an 18-wheeler with the oversized Duke football helmet emblazoned along the sides rumbles to a stop. A few men wear work clothes. A few others are decked out in Blue Devils garb.I thought you were a North Carolina fan, one volunteer teases.Not today, the other replies.This is how it is throughout this region of flood-ravaged North Carolina these days. Theyre all on the same team. Rivalries disappear when someone is willing to chip in with some needed supplies.Dukes equipment truck backs into a loading dock while a half-dozen members of the Blue Devils football team -- all graduate students on an off week from classes -- pile out of a van to help unload the freight.There are diapers and toothpaste, cases of water and Gatorade, towels, blankets and pillows. There are sneakers and sweatshirts and a handful of Pinstripe Bowl Champions T-shirts, all donated from Duke for residents displaced from their homes in the wake of Hurricane Matthew and the flooding that followed.As soon as I told people we were struggling, there was a ton of stuff, said Duke wide receiver Kane Banner, a Lumberton native whose father coaches the citys high school football team. These guys taking time out of their day to come home with me -- theyve got busy schedules, but they saw one of their brothers was hurting.Duke hosted Army on Oct. 8 as the storm dumped rain across the East Coast. It was a bad storm, of course, but it wasnt until the game ended and Banner retrieved his cell phone that he started to grasp the impact on his hometown. There were calls from family and texts from friends. He flipped on the TV and saw the pictures. It was horrifying.Around the same time, Shayla Oxendine was trading texts with her brother. Oxendine is a Lumberton native, too, but she now lives in Raleigh and works for the US Marshals Service. Her entire family still lived in Lumberton, and as the flood waters rose, the text exchanges with her brother became more panicked. Late that evening, he finally decided to evacuate. He trudged through to his car, holding kids in each arm, water up to his waist.The following Monday, as Banner addressed his team asking for donations he could bring back home, Oxendine put in a call to her friend, Gerald Harrison, an associate athletic director at Duke. Both had the same idea.Duke is very giving to the community, so I sent an email in hopes of a reply, Oxendine said. This wasnt the reply I was expecting, but its so awesome. My heart is full.Harrison reached out to Duke coach David Cutcliffe, Cutcliffe talked with Banner and the drive to get supplies from Durham to Lumberton began.Players donated all they could, from old gear to canned goods. The school set up a promotion for the Blue Devils game against Virginia Tech on Nov. 5 -- with donations of three canned goods getting a discounted ticket. The school also gave Harrison a hefty budget to buy supplies to bring to Lumberton, so Harrison took the equipment staff on a shopping spree.We went out and lost our minds, Harrison said. Its funny, when you give yourself a budget thats pretty high, you just start throwing stuff in the cart.For Lumberton, every donation matters. The city -- along with a sizable portion of the Eastern part of North Carolina -- went without power for days, and without water for even longer. Even as Duke was delivering supplies nearly two weeks after the storm, residents were just beginning to return to their homes to inspect the damage. Along Almanac Road, in the Southern part of the town, doors were swung wide open to air out the flood-damaged furniture inside, and clothes hung on chain-link fences to dry. A horse farm still featured massive lakes of flood water. At the height of the destruction, Oxendine said, the heads of the horses sticking above the water line were all that could be seen.Back at Duke, the team felt the impact of the storm, too.I know weve had some parents coming to Durham to stay with their sons [after being displaced], Cutcliffe said last week. We prayed every day as a team for all of those people affected in our state.Banners family was safe. They had a few downed trees and a little water in the garage, but no major damage. They were the lucky ones.One of Banners friends from high school said his mother, aunt and grandmother all lost their homes, and they were hardly alone. More than 150 cots were laid out in a community gymnasium in the center of town for residents with nowhere else to go. Some came from surrounding counties as shelters there closed down; many were unsure when theyd get to go home. Dozens of volunteers from the American Red Cross and other organizations were there to help, and one by one, people from around the community came by to drop off blankets and food and water.They told me yall needed towels, one man told Red Cross volunteer Star Houston, the shelter manager, as he offloaded bags from his pickup truck. So I went and bought all of them I could find.The town simply wasnt prepared for destruction of this magnitude. Its the little things that matter so much now.They were people out on rubber rafts, putting senior citizens in boats to get them out, wading through the water, said Margaret Greene, a longtime Lumberton resident who has been in various shelters since the storm. So any help is good. Theyve been good to us.Dukes donations filled up the majority of the 18-wheeler, and players offloaded each item into the warehouse that now serves as a makeshift distribution center for victims. Its hardly an answer for people who lost everything, but its something, and that was important to Banner.The community in Lumberton and a dozen other small towns surrounding it are still hurting, and recovery is still a long way off, but Banner said he hopes they realize they arent alone.Its not just the stuff were bringing, but from a morale standpoint, Banner said. Lumberton is a tough city, but when you see people coming in to help, it gives you the mindset that things will be OK. Authentic China Jerseys .Y. - New Orleans forward Anthony Davis was chosen Friday to replace the injured Kobe Bryant in the NBA All-Star game that will be played in his home city. Cheap NFL Jerseys Sale . -- Bryant McKinnie came out of his stance and lowered his shoulder into a practice squad player, causing a crisp thud to reverberate in the Miami Dolphins practice bubble. http://www.jerseyscheapest.com/ . It was just business as usual for the Thunder at home. 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