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Colin Raby

colinraby.com · On The Record · CR-2022-015

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For immediate release · December 19, 2022

LSU Silver Wings' Hurricane Ian relief drive delivers more than 3,200 pounds of supplies to Fort Myers

Raby, Silver Wings' Region IX president, co-leads LSU's Hurricane Ian drive with Patrick O'Neill; with Julius Pallotta, they drive 3,200+ pounds of supplies 14 hours to a Fort Myers food pantry.

View the original post on Instagram
FilmThe drop-off. Posted to Instagram by LSU's Silver Wings chapter.
Colin Raby, in a brown polo, handing cases of ramen out of a U-Haul to a volunteer at the food pantry's loading dock
Fig. 1Raby (center) unloading at McGregor Baptist Church's food pantry in Fort Myers, Dec. 19, 2022.

FORT MYERS, Fla. · Colin Raby co-led LSU Silver Wings' Hurricane Ian supply drive, and on Dec. 19, 2022, he and fellow members Patrick O'Neill and Julius Pallotta delivered more than 3,200 pounds of food and supplies to McGregor Baptist Church's food pantry in Fort Myers, Fla., nearly three months after the storm.Pallotta would later co-found FarmSmart, now FarmMind, with Raby.

A graphic headed “Fort Myers Hurricane Relief Project, December 2022”: 3,237+ pounds, over one and a half tons, of supplies delivered, with an itemized count of cans, diapers, water, wipes, paper goods, coffee and food, plus $901 in donated funds
ExhibitThe chapter's tally of the delivery, from LSU Silver Wings' 2022 year in review on Instagram.

Raby, then the chapter's treasurer and Silver Wings' Region IX president, led the drive with O'Neill, who proposed it and ran its operations.Raby had helped revive LSU's chapter that spring, and in September, as region president, presented the State of the Region to Silver Wings' national executive board. For a month, members of the chapter and LSU's Arnold Air Society squadron asked shoppers outside Baton Rouge grocery stores for food and money, and LSU Student Government, where Raby was a senator, put just under $2,000 toward travel.Raby represented the College of Engineering in the Student Senate from his freshman year on, and that fall chaired its Budget and Appropriations Committee. The travel bill was his own. "Once the media has moved on, people around the world aren't focused on it anymore and you don't see the same type of support," Raby told The Reveille.“Air Force service organization contributes to hurricane relief in Fort Myers, Florida,” by Claire Theriot, The Reveille, Nov. 30, 2022.

On the evening of Dec. 18 the three loaded a 15-foot U-Haul, stopped at a Walmart near midnight to turn donated money into more ramen, cereal and canned goods, and drove through the night: some 820 miles and 14 hours.The last time Raby headed east along the Gulf Coast for a cause, he went on foot: 323 miles to Eglin Air Force Base for veterans, in 2020.

The chapter's count: at least 2,592 cans, 451 diapers, 479 sanitary wipes, 200 bottles of water, 64 rolls of toilet paper, 20 rolls of paper towels, 31 bags of coffee and 15 moving boxes of other food, plus $901 in donated funds. Twelve members gave some 540 hours to the project. Without the delivery, the pantry told them, it would have had to go into debt to keep feeding the community.The count is from the chapter's 2022 year in review on Instagram; the hours and the pantry's word, from its project report to Silver Wings national.

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A Google Maps route along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Harry Chapin Food Bank in Fort Myers, Florida: 819 miles and 12 hours 41 minutes
Fig. 2The route Google Maps planned, about 820 miles and 12½ hours. The drive took 14.
The back of a U-Haul at night, its floor stacked with canned goods, water and bagged groceries, diapers on the shelf above, under a Snapchat caption reading “Things are progressing”
Fig. 3Loading the U-Haul in Baton Rouge on the evening of Dec. 18.
A selfie in a Walmart aisle, two volunteers behind him pushing shopping carts stacked with flats of canned corn and soup
Fig. 4Filling carts with canned corn and soup.
Two volunteers at a Walmart self-checkout surrounded by shopping carts piled with cases of ramen, boxes of cereal and flats of canned vegetables
Fig. 5At checkout near midnight, spending donated money on ramen, cereal and canned vegetables.
The U-Haul's cargo bed packed with cases of ramen, flats of canned goods, water, paper towels, toilet paper and boxes of diapers
Fig. 6The truck loaded, just before midnight on Dec. 18.
Seven people smiling under a covered loading dock beside a door signed “McGregor Baptist Church Food Pantry”: three LSU students with four pantry volunteers
Fig. 7Raby (back row, right), O'Neill and Pallotta (front) with volunteers at McGregor Baptist Church's food pantry.

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