The Tar Heel State continues to come together after last Friday’s tornado ripped through Beaufort County. The North Carolina Community Foundation has activated its statewide disaster relief fund.

The NCCF began in 1999 after Hurricane Floyd, and have sense helped following the tornadoes in 2010, Hurricane Irene and Sandy.

Tuesday, the NCCF reactivated its relief funds to support Beaufort County victims, along with Chowan, Pasquotank and Perquimans counties. The funds will stay in the four county area that Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency.

“Right now we just reactivated the fund and we are sinking donations to the fund, but we haven’t made any allocations yet,” Noël McLaughlin, Director of Marketing and Communications of NCCF, said. “We won’t make any allocations until we see how many donations we’re going to get and what the needs are.”

There is a local board of directors in each of the four counties and they will determine which nonprofits in the counties can best serve the needs of the community.

“Our fund is not designed to compete with first responders like the Red Cross unless there are no first responders in a community,” McLaughlin said. “Our fund is intended more to meet the needs after first responders are done or out of the community.”

The NCCF partners with affiliate foundations in the area through the Beaufort-Hyde Community Foundation, the Chowan Community Funds Foundation and the Northern Albemarle Community Foundation.

When the immediate needs for housing, clothes and food are met and when people are getting back into their homes the NCCF helps people with bills or reconstruction, according to McLaughlin.

“We are so sorry that our neighbors and friends have suffered losses due to these horrible storms,” Jennifer Tolle Whiteside, NCCF CEO, said in a press release. “Our affiliate foundations serving these areas will ensure that contributions we collect for the NCCF Disaster Relief Fund are effectively distributed to those nonprofits agencies that can serve the greatest needs in our partner communities.”

To donate to the NCCF, visit nccomunityfoundation.org or through the U.S. Postal Service, NCCF 4601 Six Forks Road, Suite 524, Raleigh, N.C. 27609, and designate the gift is for April 25 Tornadoes Disaster Relief.