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 Ģ������ƵStories      November 26, 2025

Story by Cam Adams
Photos by Ashley T. Evans

Amidst the devastation left by Hurricane Helene, Taylor Schenker spent her time looking for memories along the river. Photos floated down the current, creased, ripped and water damaged, lost from those whose lives were shaken by the storm.

Schenker set out to reunite those photos with their owners, and thanks to a partnership with Ģ������Ƶ assistant professor Rebekah Alviani, those memories will be less faded.

Alviani’s Intro to Digital Photography class is digitally restoring photos found by Schenker in the aftermath of Helene.

“I started thinking, 'Wow, if only I had more time, I would love to offer restoration services to the people who find their photographs,’ and it hit me,” Alviani said. “They need to learn how to edit. They might as well learn how to edit to restore something.

“Why not help our community at the same time?”

After Helene hit, Schenker tagged along with a friend, who had lost her home, to a FEMA appointment. When she got to the site, to her surprise, she found a photograph. She pondered why it was still there after all the destruction the hurricane caused, but it quickly made sense.

Photos are waterproof, and they tend to float. Then, she had an idea.

“I took the photos home with me and started the Instagram account, just kind of hoping the power of social media would help reconnect them,” Schenker said.

Alvani later found her account and reached out about digitally retouching those reconnected photos with her students, since she had done the same for a woman while Alvani was teaching at Brevard College last year.

Funnily enough, that same woman had found her photos from Schenker’s account before Alvani had any knowledge of it. Since Schenker started her account, @PhotosFromHelene, she estimates that she has reunited over 100 photos with their owners.

“(I had) a reason to go out and walk the rivers and start to process what things looked like and how the environment had changed while still looking for something specific and not just taking in all the destruction,” Schenker said of her experience early on in the project.

“Looking for this photo that then had the promise of maybe being reunited really helped me to process everything that had happened with the storm.”

Alviani’s class is mostly restoring photos that have not been reunited with their owners in addition to touching up photos offered up by one woman. In the process, Alviani’s students are picking up key skills in photo restoration.

Alviani says they’re learning how to adjust a photo if it has any curves from its deterioration and how to remove any artifacts or unwanted effects from it. For Madison Meredith, a student in the class, she’s polishing one of the more sentimental photos a person can have: a baby photo.

The photo, which features a baby on a blanket, has lots of little dots on it from water damage it suffered during the hurricane. Meredith, a hospitality and tourism management major, says it’s challenging, but still all the more gratifying for helping rekindle a memory for whoever claims it.

“It's very cool. It feels very personal because it means something to somebody and it's kind of put into perspective how important pictures are to people,” Meredith said. “I love it. I love to do things for people, even if they don't know who I am or that I'm doing it.”

Restoring that photo also gives Meredith a sense of connection. As she’s editing it, she often wonders who that baby is and who they grew up to be. Those thoughts ring through the heads of her fellow classmates, too.  

The old adage says a picture is worth a thousand words. To Alviani and everyone else on this project, it’s worth more than that.

“As a photographer, very biased, it's incredibly important, especially older historical photos,” Alviani said. “Once those are made, they can't be remade. We're talking pre-digital, pre-instant gratification on the cell phone.

“Those memories, especially if you have the story behind them, they're so incredibly precious.”