Saranac Laker Anna Barker stands in the back of a U-Haul truck with donations from locals for her home island of St. Vincent. The island is in need of food, water and other supplies after a volcanic eruption. She drove the load down to New York City Sunday night, where it will be loaded onto a boat bound for the Caribbean island where she grew up. (Provided photo — Terry Babbie)

SARANAC LAKE — For three weeks Anna Barker collected donations of essential supplies in the Saranac Lake area to send down to her home island of St. Vincent, where a volcanic eruption last month displaced tens of thousands from their homes.

On Sunday night she took the five-hour drive to New York City in a U-Haul filled with food, water, toiletries and first aid kits, where she dropped the donations off to the Vincy Strong Volcano Relief Drive. She got back Tuesday night.

“It was hectic but it was worth it,” the Saranac Lake resident said.

On April 9 the La Soufriere volcano on the northern end of the Caribbean island erupted for the first time in 42 years, almost to the day. Eruptions over the next week launched plumes of ash 20,000 feet in the air.

This ash contaminated food crops and water supplies. Around 20% of the island’s 100,000 people had to leave their homes as pyroclastic lava flows, projectiles and mud flows threatened them. Electricity was knocked offline. Shelters, housing thousands, were running out of supplies.

Barker knew she had to do something after talking to family members who evacuated the north end and reading news reports about the damage the eruptions were causing.

She initially planned to drive supplies down in her car but eventually had to upgrade to a U-Haul truck.

“My front porch was, like, full by the time I was done,” Barker said.

Some people donated cash, which she used to buy more supplies, and she got a donation from the Hannaford supermarket in Lake Placid.

Barker said the orange zone of the island, the middle part, is open again, but many people are still not able to move back yet because the air quality is unhealthy from the ash. The shelters where everyone has been staying are still full, she said.

Now, with the supplies waiting to be loaded on a ship to St. Vincent, Barker said she feels a load lifted off her shoulders.

“It’s good to do that work, but I really think if I had company I could have accomplished a lot more,” she said. “Doing it alone, it’s hard.”

Barker said she’s happy it’s over.

“I do not want to see any piece of grocery, a box, nor a U-Haul,” she said.

Barker moved to Saranac Lake four years ago to attend nursing school at North Country Community College, and after graduating last year she now works as a nurse at the Sunmount facility for developmentally disabled people in Tupper Lake.

The last eruption from the volcano happened on April 22, but scientists say the volcano has not gone back to sleep yet.

Barker’s family home is in the red zone on the north end of the island. It’s still standing but was covered in ash. She said her brother and cousin went up and cleaned off the house of ash, sticky and heavy from the rain. She said they’re safe, staying with friends in a safe zone of the island.