Cornelia — Earthquake victims in China are finding refuge in sturdy disaster relief shelters manufactured in this small North Georgia town, thanks to a global humanitarian fund established by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

The first project of the Team for Tomorrow Fund, supported by America's Olympic and Paralympic athletes, was providing 1,000 weather-resistant tents to China's Sichuan province. A May 12 earthquake there displaced some 5 million people.

Elissa Eubanks/eeubanks@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Jim Kimsey is president of K&W Supply of Cornelia, which primarily makes waterproof fabric for greenhouses and chicken coops. It also makes the tents donated to earthquake victims in China by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Elissa Eubanks/eeubanks@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

When emergencies arise, K&W Supply has been able to respond because of adequate raw materials on hand, including shelves of PVC pipe. The tents used in China were designed by Shelter Systems of Santa Cruz, Calif.

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The California company that designs the structures partnered with K&W Supply of Cornelia, a Habersham County town of about 3,800, for their manufacture. Located next to a feed and supply store, K&W primarily makes woven, waterproof fabric for greenhouses and chicken coops.

The small company was glad to have the business — and to be part of an Olympic initiative. "What the Olympic committee did was huge," said Rick Kimsey, vice president of K&W. "It's a wonderful feeling to be part of that effort."

His brother, Jim, is the company's president. Jim's 24-year-old son Clay, a 2006 Clemson University graduate, is a fellow vice president. Their business is housed in a former Coca-Cola bottling plant, a circa-1920s building where the elder Kimseys' father worked as a delivery truck driver in the 1930s.

"That was the syrup room, up there," Rick Kimsey said, pointing from the floor of the warehouse space to what's now an office.

He remembers, as a boy, watching through the factory's windows as rows of 6-ounce bottles glided by on a conveyor belt. His father, 87-year-old Cliff Kimsey, was a member of the University of Georgia's first Orange Bowl team. Today, a photo of him with former UGA coach Vince Dooley hangs in the office where his sons conduct international transactions.

Eleanor Hamner, business manager of Santa Cruz, Calif.-based Shelter Systems, which designs the structures, said the company has worked with its Cornelia supplier for years. Because K&W had sufficient inventory on hand, the companies were able to act fast when the need arose, she said.

"Their willingness to invest in so much material is the only way we've been able to respond to these wide-scale disasters," she said.

The tents cost between $400 and $1,000, depending on size and volume of purchase. The dome-shaped tents sent to China can shelter up to five people. They have rounded exteriors, flaps that overlap and are held together with lengths of PVC pipe to increase weather resistance.

The Chinese earthquake is not the first global emergency that's come to involve K&W. In 1999, the Kimseys' company manufactured disaster-relief tents bound for earthquake-ravaged Turkey but aren't sure they reached their intended recipients.

"We got reports they were stolen by someone we'd never heard of then: the Taliban," Jim Kimsey said.

This time the feedback has been good. Shortly after the initial shipment arrived in China last month, a group of Chinese students showed up in Cornelia. They wanted to buy more tents, Rick Kimsey said, adding that the company doesn't generally sell to individuals. The group rented a truck to drive the 25 tents they purchased to New York, where they could be shipped to China.

"We were blown away" at the Olympic effort, Rick Kimsey said. "Obviously we need to make sales, but that's really a neat thing that they're undertaking. I don't think there's any Olympians from here. Luckily we've got a few tents over there."