Volunteers from New Jersey head down to Bahamas to help hurricane victims

Volunteers from New Jersey are heading down to the Bahamas to help storm victims of Hurricane Dorian.

News 12 Staff

Sep 5, 2019, 2:30 PM

Updated 1,934 days ago

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Volunteers from New Jersey are heading down to the Bahamas to help storm victims of Hurricane Dorian.
Sixteen members who work for Empact Northwest, all with various backgrounds, boarded a United Airlines plane to assist those in need.
Empact Northwest workers and volunteers have traveled the world helping those in need, but can't do so without donations and travel assistance.
In this case, United Airlines and an organization called Airlink stepped up to help.
"Airlink is a nonprofit that works to coordinate the donated miles from the airlines to get us there and United has very generously donated all the miles and services to get us where we need to be," says Jake Gillanders, Empact Northwest Executive Director.
Olivia Weeks is a registered nurse in Seattle, who grew up in New Vernon, Morris County.
She's volunteering for the first time in her career and believes she's prepared for whatever they encounter.

"With Empact, we do drills every month a lot of training so I actually do feel very prepared,” says Weeks.
The K-9s going to assist the members have very unique travel plans, and were not in Newark.
Click here if you would like to make a donation to the Empact Northwest relief effort in the Bahamas.