Matt McSwain had no plans to start a nonprofit in late September. He just had a mission: help the people of Western North Carolina.
Operation Helo started as a nameless operation of patchwork pilots in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene. A friend of McSwain’s was involved with Operation Airdrop, a nonprofit that uses small bush planes to get supplies to areas affected by a natural disaster, and asked him to help.
Those planes could only do so much, McSwain said. The hard-to-reach mountains and valleys covered in mudslides needed something more precise. They needed helicopters…