NU grad and former Peach Queen raises funds for hurricane relief

Chelsea Pelsone recently combined three of her specialty skills – giving back, exploring and marketing – to raise funds for hurricane relief following the devastation brought on by Helene and Milton.

Pelsone’s business, Somewhere Else with Chels, partnered with Nikki DiRamio and Lumos & Nox Specialty Lemonade to present an outdoor excursion benefiting Greater Good Charities.

“I'm a travel agent, and I plan group trips for people that want to travel but have nobody to go with; or maybe they're going through something in their life,” Pelsone explained. “I went through a divorce. That's kind of how I started this, because I wanted to travel, and I had no one to go with myself. I do group trips. I just did one in Thailand in May. I took eight women to Thailand, and I had partnered with another travel agent. We took a pretty large group. I did another trip in July – for Fourth of July – I took eight women to Maine, and now I'm planning a group trip to Columbia that will be in February.

“I thought, 'I kind of want to do some local stuff. We live in a beautiful area.'

“I kept seeing all the hurricane disasters on TikTok, and all these people that are displaced and needing funds. And I thought, ‘You know what, why don't I plan a group hike at the gorge, and it can be a $10 donation, or really just whatever people want to donate. We'll go do a group hike.’

“I partnered with Lumos & Nox, they do the specialty lemonade. And I said, ‘Do you want to do lemonades for everybody?’ And she said, ‘Absolutely.’ So, we ended up raising like $250 just on a group hike.”

“I had 20 females that ended up signing up and donating and meeting me, and we hiked the gorge. We had some lemonade after. It was super nice. … I couldn't believe how many people were saying to me, ‘Wow, thank you for organizing this. You should do more of these. And I'm like, ‘Huh. OK.’ So now, I'm trying to plan one for early November, to do the eternal flame, just to plan like a group outing.

“It seems like people are craving that community, and like being in the outdoors and meeting new people. And if we can donate to charity while we're building community, why not – especially for people that need it?”

(Photos by Nikki DiRamio // Opal Iris Photography / Lumos & Nox // courtesy of Chelsea Pelsone)

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Pelsone, a 2014 Niagara University graduate – who was crowned Niagara County Peach Queen at the 2011 Peach Festival – said she found Greater Good Charities through a mutual Instagram post.

“They have people on the ground right now in both Florida and North Carolina, but specifically through Hurricane Helene, they're basically flying (out) animals that they're saving. They're helping people,” she said. “It's kind of nice, because you can go right on their website and make a donation of really whatever you'd like to.

“They ended up mentioning us on Instagram and just said, ‘Thank you so much.’ They actually mentioned a couple other people, too. Somebody did a charity event in Alaska for it; somebody did a karaoke bar in New York City. So, people are seeing this charity and trying to raise funds in different ways, because they know that they're on the ground, directly helping those that were impacted from the hurricanes.”