The items collected in Boston this week to help people displaced by Hurricane Harvey — diapers, clean clothing, food, toiletries, blankets, pet food, and more — were supposed to be packed up by Thursday night.
But there were more donations than anyone had expected. The deadline has been extended to noon on Friday.
At the original deadline of 5 p.m. Thursday, dozens of volunteers — including three fork lift drivers — were loading up donations on two donated 18-wheel tractor trailers.
Renee Fielding, Boston's emergency management director, looked on, surprised to see vans from different towns still rolling up. Through the afternoon and evening, the donations just kept coming, and coming.
"The whole community has come up from the all of the Commonwealth and brought stuff," Fielding said. "It's so heartwarming to see."
Gregory Rooney is the city's commissioner of property management. He was overseeing the dozens of volunteers sorting and loading donations.
"I've seen how this city's rallied around the Marathon bombing, [and] the severe winter we had a few years ago," Rooney said. "It's just overwhelming to see the sheer generosity of people around the city."
Rooney says he expects they'll need two or three more tractor trailers than they originally thought to get all of the donations down to Houston. The first two 18-wheelers should be on their way by late Friday afternoon.
