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When Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina within the fall of 2024, the injury was devastating. However whereas most individuals sought security, members of the Linville-Central Rescue Squad headed straight into the catastrophe zone. Technical coaching and lengthy hours of follow enabled the all-volunteer staff to supply essential response and help in the course of the space’s catastrophic flooding.
The occasion was unprecedented, however Linville-Central’s search-and-rescue efforts shouldn’t have been a shock. For greater than 50 years, the group has been offering SAR providers in Avery County and the encircling area, with a staff that features first responders, licensed rescue technicians, EMTs, paramedics, and K9s. They reply wherever wanted—evacuating a hiker with a damaged ankle, rescuing a climber stranded on a cliff, extricating a sufferer trapped by a automobile accident, trying to find misplaced folks, and extra.
It’s all hero’s work, particularly when you think about Linville-Central is a nonprofit, volunteer-led group. Plus, it’s working in an space the place the demand for search-and-rescue providers retains growing, because of the rising variety of folks exploring the attractive however rugged and technical terrain, with quite a few mountain trails, waterfalls, and mountain climbing locations. Their service space consists of components of the Blue Ridge Parkway, Grandfather Mountain State Park, the Appalachian Path, Misplaced Cove Wilderness, and the Wilson Creek Wild and Scenic River Space.
Fortuitously, their job simply bought just a little simpler, because of the Defender Service Awards Introduced by Chase. Now in its fifth 12 months, this system honors the unsung heroes of our communities, the hardworking nonprofits throughout the USA and Canada that present essential neighborhood help, like search-and-rescue providers, veteran help, out of doors entry, and animal welfare. Winners in six classes take residence a Defender 130 SUV and $30,000 in prize cash. That may be a recreation changer for an area nonprofit, and it’s simply the newest incarnation of Defender’s legacy of supporting charitable organizations. For many years, Defender has created legendary automobiles to take service employees on missions to assist others, and that continues with the Defender Service Awards. Since 2021, this system has awarded 24 personalized Defender SUVs and greater than $1 million to raise mission-driven organizations which are strengthening their communities. In complete, 90-plus nonprofits have benefited, enabling them to enhance and broaden their providers.
The Linville-Central Rescue Squad is one in every of them, incomes the Search, Rescue and Emergency Assist Companies Award in 2024. “Once we needed to ship a search staff to a neighboring state to go looking high-angle terrain, the Defender 130 was the right car,” says Derick Calloway, director of the squad’s mountain rescue staff. “It transported the staff and their technical gear and towed a UTV. One factor we realized from responding to Hurricane Helene is that we’d like extra succesful automobiles, and now we’ve got one with the Defender 130. When the following flood comes, we all know we’ll be higher ready.”
Christopher Brown, one other Linville-Central volunteer EMT and member of the mountain rescue staff, says the advantages of the Defender 130 are clear—like having cameras throughout the car on the wheels to barter tight, technical terrain and crowded trailheads. However he additionally says they’ve realized that the award is way larger than simply successful the car and the grant. “We’ve made useful connections and obtained extra publicity than ever earlier than,” he says. “Even our personal neighborhood hasn’t all the time recognized what we do. The Defender Service Awards has allowed us to inform our story to an enormous viewers. That helps Linville-Central Rescue Squad on so many ranges.”
Enter the 2025 Defender Service Awards
Know a nonprofit that might use a supercapable 4WD car and $30,000 money? The time is now to enter this mission-driven awards program.
Be taught extra at Defender Service Awards.
The Defender Model embraces the unimaginable. Every member of the Defender household is purposefully designed, extremely fascinating and significantly sturdy. A contemporary‑day hero that respects the previous however on the identical time anticipates the long run. Accessible in 90, 110 and 130 physique kinds, with as much as eight seats, every has a charisma of its personal. The powerful luxurious Defender OCTA is the grasp of efficiency — taking efficiency and functionality to a different stage on and off‑street. A beacon of liberty that may hint its heritage again to the primary Land Rover in 1948, Defender is a model that helps humanitarian and conservation work with the Worldwide Federation of Pink Cross and Pink Crescent Societies and the Tusk Belief. The Defender model is underpinned by Land Rover — a mark of belief constructed on greater than 75 years of experience in know-how and world‑main off‑street functionality. Defender automobiles are designed and engineered within the UK and offered in 121 international locations. It belongs to the JLR home of manufacturers alongside Vary Rover, Discovery and Jaguar.
