When Hurricane Helene swept through North Carolina in late September, 27-year-old Taylor Schenker was relieved her home in Canton was spared. She soon realized, however, that not everyone was so fortunate. Now, she is dedicating herself to helping others reconnect with their cherished memories.
In the days following the hurricane, Schenker noticed a handful of photographs scattered in the debris. It sparked an idea, and she decided to collect them.
Then she started searching for more. Pretty soon, she was combing a riverbank in her quest.
“[These photos] represent so many memories that people can’t get back,” Schenker told The Epoch Times. “For people who have lost everything, to be able to have that little piece back, I think, is really meaningful.”
Reuniting People With Their Memories
Schenker cleans every photo before posting it online. Some pictures have mud or dirt on them, which she wipes off. She uses her thumb or a soft paintbrush to remove the dirt without damaging the picture.
“The majority of the photos have really stayed in decent shape,” said Schenker, who owns a graphic design and data visualization company.
After cleaning, Schenker sorts the photos and posts them on social media. When owners reach out, she either hand-delivers their pictures or mails them.
Everyone who has retrieved their photos has shared heartfelt hugs and tears with Schenker.
One of the photos Schenker shared on Instagram was, unbeknownst to her, posted online the day before the owner’s funeral. The owner’s friends messaged her to claim the photo, saying their hearts skipped a beat when they saw the beautiful picture that brought back cherished memories.
“They have lost so much,” Schenker said of the hurricane’s victims. “So to have a moment where they are able to reconnect with this item and think about fun memories, it’s really good.”
She also helped reunite a mother with photos of her son who had passed away a few years ago. Having just lost her home in the hurricane, the return of these treasured images brought her some comfort amidst the devastation.
“They lost virtually all existence of this child,” Schenker said. “That’s so devastating. But to [also] be able to reunite her with some of the baby photos of her other sons who are all alive just means so much.”
‘It Means a Lot’
Schenker is also in touch with search and rescue crews. One of them is Savage Freedoms Relief Operations (SFO), a non-profit organization helping North Carolina residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.“It’s all volunteer former-military guys, and they said that they had been collecting a ton [of photos] and that I was welcome to pick them up and help reunite them [with their owners],” she said. “Now, I visit their headquarters probably once a week to pick up any photos that they might have.”
With over four hundred photos collected, and half of them cleaned and posted online, Schenker shows no signs of slowing down. So far, about 15 to 20 percent of the pictures have been reunited with their original owners.
“I’m going to keep continuing the project as long as we keep finding photos, and they will stay safely organized in my office as long as they need to be,” she said.
As a business owner, Schenker has been doing this project on the side but considers it a great blessing. “I just think it’s a privilege to be able to have these photos and to be able to get them back to their family,” she said. “It means a lot.”
Reflecting on her initiative’s name, she said she chose “Photos From Helene” to counter the negativity in the media.
“On the news, we were seeing, a lot of times they’d say, ‘Here’s some photos from Helene’ or ‘Here’s some videos from Helene’—and it was just mass destruction,” she said. “So part of choosing the name also was reclaiming what it meant to have photos from Helene.”
Schenker may not know the story behind each picture that comes into her hands, but she never forgets that someone else does.
As North Carolina recovers from the devastation of Helene, she expects to see more photos reunited with their rightful owners, and to have the privilege of being that person who can hug them and say, “I’m so glad you survived this ... I’m so glad that you are here.”
