YouTube star Jake Paul watched as news of the devastation brought on by Hurricane Harvey ravaged Texas — and he decided he wanted to help.
“We drove straight through from L.A.,” the former Disney star tells PEOPLE of driving halfway across the country earlier this week with some of the members of his social media “talent incubator,” Team 10.
Their first stop was San Antoino, where Paul put a message out to his 2.2 million Twitter followers to meet him at a local Walmart with donations.
“I asked for water and diapers and other things I was hearing people needed at the shelters. We brought two U-Haul trucks with us and we were able to fill both those trucks. It was something like 33,000 lbs. of supplies,” says Paul. “We dropped that off at the San Antonio Food Bank so that the people who are being sheltered there from Houston had what they needed.”
Next they headed to Houston, where they teamed up with first responders to get people out of their homes as flood waters continued to rise.
“We were running them around on Sea-Doos to people’s houses and helping them respond to calls that they were getting about accidents in the water. We’d take people to go get medicine from their houses or reuniting them with their families,” he says.
Now, as the focus for much of the city shifts from rescue to recovery, so does Paul’s efforts.
“Friday we went and helped demo a home that had been destroyed by the water,” he says. “People think that just because the water has gone down that the crisis is over, but in reality it’s just beginning.”
He’s set up a GoFundMe account that has already raised over $40,000 and wants to get the word out about the donation campaign in hopes of reaching his $500,000 goal.
“There has been such a great response. I didn’t know how to get involved but I found a way. And now I want to give other people a way to do the same,” he says. “The biggest thing is get involved in any way possible. If that’s coming in person to help with clean-up, amazing. If that’s organizing a fundraiser, great. If that’s donating what you can, just as good. There’s still so much work to be done.”