Ellijay residents known for making boiled peanuts recently used their own resources and generosity to help people affected by the December tornadoes that ripped across eastern Kentucky.
Albert O’Shields, known to many as Ellijay’s “peanut man,” and his wife, Cindy, set out to make soup for Kentuckians who’ve been displaced by the tornado damage shortly after the holidays.
“My wife and I were praying for the people in Kentucky,” said O’Shields. “I have these big cookers that I heat the peanuts up in, so I told her how it would be cool to take some homemade soup to the people and serve it to them. She said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
After calling a nonemergency number for tornado relief efforts, the couple was told it would be better if they could wait till after Christmas because of the amount of donations that had already come in.
“That’s what we did, and it gave us a chance to get other people involved,” O’Shields said. “The Orchard and Northcutt churches were big in helping us.”
Albert and Cindy set out from Ellijay with their peanut equipment, including two 28-gallon gas-powered cookers, and such ingredients as 50 pounds of frozen soup base. They were accompanied by Roger Bunnell, who helps O’Shields with his peanut vending, and Bunnell’s granddaughter, Jaiden Bauer.
“We just went on God’s way,” O’Shields said.
The team initially wanted to serve soup to residents of Graves County and its county seat, Mayfield, but they were sent to Bowling Green where Red Cross and FEMA relief efforts were being done. Nonessential workers were being detoured from the hardest hit areas as cleanup and rebuilding continue, O’Shields noted.
“Bowling Green wasn’t completely wiped out. That was where they were sending people,” he said.
The four set up tables and canopies to make soup near a Red Cross emergency center where many people were coming for assistance. Many of the people they met were staying in Bowling Green hotels, O’Shields noted.
“A lot of the people we served food to had paperwork with them because they were coming to see Red Cross and FEMA. They had an office set up in a little Sears building there,” O’Shields said. “There was a lot of people with dogs and we couldn’t figure that out at first, but Cindy said, ’Well, if you lose your home, you’ve (still) got the dogs.’”
The homemade vegetable soup was welcomed and appreciated by those who tried it, said O’Shields. Most important is they were able to bring a little comfort to strangers in need, he noted.
“We were right there amongst people who’d lost everything they had. Anything they wanted, we (tried) to provide,” O’Shields said. “We made them a little sack with soup, an apple and mints that Mercier’s (Orchard) gave us. A lot of folks who we served lunch to came back to get more soup to take back to their hotel.”
Donated gift cards were given to FEMA personnel to be distributed, and the team also handed out blankets, tarps, baby formula and almost 75 knit hats made by Cindy’s aunt, who lives in Florida, noted O’Shields.
“She had made them, but she didn’t know why. When she heard we were going, she sent the hats with us,” he said.
Albert and Cindy have been in Gilmer County since 2001, and they’ve been doing boiled peanuts here for the past 10 years. O’Shields started out as a roadside peanut man, and later began selling the savory treats at festivals. He’s since become a fixture at the Georgia Apple Festival, Ellijay’s July Fourth festivities and other recurring local events.
This was the first time O’Shields used his peanut cookers to prepare soup, but it probably won’t be the last. He and Cindy are hoping to go back to Kentucky sometime later this year.
“The next day, after we had left, they had another tornado come through (Bowling Green),” he said.
People will still need help then, and rebuilding will be going on for a long time, O’Shields noted.
“We’ll certainly be carrying back some more soup,” he said.