Newlywed sailor bride and groom organize fundraiser for Hurricane Helen victims

SEATTLE — Sailors help those affected by terrible circumstances in every possible way.

Last week we told you about the star catcher Cal Raleigh’s Hurricane Helen fundraising efforts.

The effort, the Mariners tell us, has raised $10,000 in donations from Washington state alone to the North Carolina Community Foundation. But the area of ​​devastation is vast in an area ill-equipped to deal with the rare, catastrophic effects of hurricanes so far inland.

And it affects the family of another star of the Mariners. Newcomer Ryan Bliss just got engaged to longtime girlfriend Caitlin Hadjopoulos, who hails from Greenville, Tennessee.

The couple met while Ryan was playing baseball at Auburn and Kaitlyn was attending the University of Tennessee. This couple has deep ties to this region. So in Greenville, a rural farming community devastated by Hurricane Helen, Ryan and Kaitlynn sprung into action.

“It’s just a shock,” Kaitlynn said.

“You see people who … you just don’t know where to start. And I think that’s the hardest thing because my hometown is so small, we’re very friendly to agriculture. That is why we live off our agricultural land. That’s how Most of the people from my hometown don’t have income anymore the hardest thing, to be able to sit there and watch, this is where I grew up and just see things happen like this and a lot of people don’t have flood insurance, so it another thing where it’s really just devastating is to see that people are actually homeless,” she added.

For this, the couple created a GoFundMe page with a goal of $10,000, just trying to help in any way possible.Donations and, of course, messages of support come from Mariners fans.

“This is a big deal for us,” Bliss told me. “Just the constant support, not just because they’re Seattle Mariners fans, but just because they have heart. I think we can say we love Seattle. Since we’ve been there, we’ve seen how the fans treat the players, we’ve seen that they really love their sport and there’s a lot of support for them, like I said, on the pitch and off the pitch, and the support that , which is important to us. And we just can’t thank you guys enough for helping us out.”

As news coverage fades in the days and weeks following the hurricane’s devastation, work continues to be an absolute struggle for residents in needy areas. Making efforts like Ryan’s and Kaitlynn’s that much more important.

“I think they just got running water, maybe a week or so ago, but they haven’t had it for two and a half, three weeks,” Bliss says. They taught people in the city how to boil it, and you put it in the toilet, take it. They taught people how to survive,” Bliss said

“They’re just stuck there. The only way they have to get to people is by air,” Caitlinn said of residents trapped in mountainous areas.

A terrible situation, but a crumb of positivity came out of it. These Mariners players, whether Raleigh or Bliss and his family, show us that sports “heroes” are one thing, but helping people in the real world by using this ballpark in this way? That’s all.

“I think we do it just for the sake of it. We actually do it for the love of the game, but we also do it to give back and use our platform to help others.”

Well said Bliss.

You can check out more of what the couple had to say herevideo.