Instead, on Monday, they loaded up, headed to western Rowan County and slung bales of hay onto the backs of flatbed trucks.

And this morning, they woke up before sunrise to truck that hay to eastern North Carolina, where farmers hit hard by flooding need it to feed their livestock.

“All the farmers had full barns of hay, but the flood destroyed it,”said Grant Culp, who spent the day Monday loading hay.

It’s not the first load of hay Rowan farmers have sent east. And it’s not the first time Culp has helped take it there.

But Culp, a junior and president of the FFA at East Rowan High School, and others are giving up part of Christmas vacation to make this delivery.

Culp has gone to Tarboro twice, the first time with Culp Brothers Inc., a Gold Hill construction company owned by his father and uncles.

In addition to canned food, they took a work crew and equipment to move debris, he said.

A couple of weeks ago, he went with the Liberty Volunteer Fire Department, where he is a junior volunteer, to deliver hay farmers need to feed their livestock.

Seeing the need first hand, he decided to try and put together another trip over the holidays, even if that meant giving up vacation time.

“It may be a small part, but at least we know we’re helping somebody,” Culp said Monday afternoon, standing in a field in western Rowan. “It’s kind of the season for giving, anyway.”

So he called up a few friends, and they spent the better part of last week lining up trucks and asking for farmers’ extra hay.

Many farmers in the eastern part of the county have given all they can, so Culp and friends focused on western Rowan this time.

Stephanie Dale, a West Rowan High School student and FFA member, went to work getting the hay donated.

“I just went around and talked to some people,” including an uncle, a neighbor and other local farmers,she said.

By Monday, the group had pledges from farmers and others with animals for about 20 large bales of hay and more than 100 small bales, Culp said.

That comes to more than 27,000 pounds of hay, said Michael Ridenhour, an East Rowan High graduate and former FFA member.

He said he took time out to help load all that hay because he believes disaster could strike here as quickly as it did in the eastern part of the state.

“I farm, too,”he said. “If flood, or drought or something like that would happen to me, it’d be nice to have some help.”