Bringing Relief

Area Residents Travel To Areas Hit By Helene

Rockbridge area citizens and organizations continue to organize and provide aid to communities affected by Hurricane Helene and the resulting floods in North Carolina.

Some of those residents have even traveled to the disaster areas in recent weeks, among those a local family and representatives of a local Christian school and a tree service.

We’ll tell their stories this week, along with a few other donation efforts underway, and we encourage other organizations involved in relief efforts to send us an email to [email protected] so that we can shed light on their efforts.

The Moores And Castle Christian School

A recent mission trip organized by the new Castle Christian School and led by Amy and Jason Moore, owners of Heritage Woodwork and Cabinetry, brought aid to stormaffected communities in North Carolina.

The Moores, whose children attend Castle Christian, initiated relief efforts weeks ago, which have snowballed into a significant mobilization of students, parents, and community members.

Three weeks ago, the Moores transported supplies to North Carolina, eventually finding out about the service being done by Georgetown Baptist Church in Leicester. The church had been serving at least 900 hot meals daily to residents and first responders.

“Amy and Jason coordinated many trailer loads of supplies, everything from laundry detergent to tools, propane to diesel fuel, and even campers for those without homes,” said Lori Teague, principal of Castle Christian School, in a phone call with The News-Gazette this week.

Amy Moore, on another call, described the emotional impact of their work: “It’s incredibly heartbreaking, but amazing and joyful and beautiful at the same time.”

The Moores have personally purchased over $30,000 worth of supplies, through the help of donations from local folks, and coordinated the delivery of 11 trailer loads of supplies to the affected areas.

“A bunch of us in the area are all working together. If there’s something somebody needs, we just go and get it and find a way to bring it down,” she said.

Inspired by the Moores’ efforts, Castle Christian School mobilized its older students to join the relief effort.

“We talk a lot about serving others, and this was a great example of someone they [the students] knew helping out,” Teague explained. Teague, Moore, other parents and several students made the journey to North Carolina to assist with the relief work.

This past Saturday, the Castle Christian team split into two groups. One group stayed at Georgetown Baptist Church, preparing spaghetti dinners. The other group delivered supplies to a nearby community center, which was hit hard by the storm. They unloaded trailers, organized supplies, and helped set up tents for those still living in temporary shelters.

In the afternoon, the entire team regrouped and headed to Lake Lure. There, they delivered a 16-foot trailer load of tools and propane tanks to another self-organized distribution center. “It was a full day, and we were done by about 9 o’clock, working from seven in the morning to sundown,” Teague recounted.

On Sunday, the team distributed blankets, sponsored by Castle Christian students, to children and adults at Georgetown Baptist Church. Each blanket included a personal note from the students.

“It’s a good experience for our kids and incredible to see the movement of people in our community to provide help,” Teague remarked. She emphasized the importance of empathy, noting, “When you go down there, that could be us, because it’s so much like here. We shared with them, ‘You are us.’” Amy Moore, between substitute teaching jobs at Castle Christian School, is already coordinating more supply runs. She described the thrill of connecting with people in times of need and support: “It’s so weird how you can love someone so much and have never met them. You walk into these places and you already feel like part of their family.”

Honorable Tree Service The Honorable Tree Service sent a small crew led by business owner Tony Petryszyn down to Banner Elk and Beech Mountain, North Carolina, where they spent over a week early this month providing free tree clearance services to aid in storm recovery efforts.

The company is a small, family-run business in Fairfield, which specializes in tree removal projects that might be considered too complex or difficult for lessexperienced folks.

The entire crew, consisting of five members, volunteered their time and expertise without pay. “My crew blew me away. I was anticipating going down with maybe one other person … I was not expecting all of them to sacrifice a week of pay just to go down and help people,” said Petryszyn in a phone call with The News-Gazette.

The group focused on getting trees and branches off structures, projects that require the kind of specialized skills Petryszyn and crew pride themselves on.

They agreed to help with the projects that seemed to require the most attention. In Beech Mountain, Petryszyn did more consulting, realizing that folks with more money and resources would be able to get help via other means. But when approached by a local Army veteran who needed an entire family cemetery cleaned up, the crew put in the work to help.

“I can help people who don’t have money to get stuff off their houses faster than I can help one person who has money to get one branch off one house,” said Petryszyn.

Upon arrival in North Carolina, the crew expected to have to camp, but they learned of a Best Western in Banner Elk, N.C., that had some working utilities and that had opened its doors to house folks who needed help in the area. A local Presbyterian relief center, the Holston Presbytery Camp and Retreat Center, also provided lodging and supplies for the workers.

Back at home base in Fairfield, office manager Emma Gould coordinated the planning and communications, with the helpful assistance of neighbors, friends and family. Gould works as a midwife in addition to running the tree service’s office, and she also has children at home.

“I had clients call me who knew what was going on, and they offered to watch my kids so I could take care of what was needed,” Gould said. “The whole community stepped in to help.”

When she learned how much of the tree service’s crew had volunteered to help without pay, she set up a GoFundMe to raise money for them. “The crew weren’t expecting to be paid at all, so they were grateful,” she said.

The extra money raised from the GoFundMe will be going right back to the communities Petryszyn and crew helped in North Carolina, particularly the owners and operators of the Best Western and the Holston Presbytery Center who housed and assisted their aid efforts.

As the crew packed up and got ready to head back home to Virginia, they noticed the power company coming in, beginning to string up new power lines — a job they weren’t able to accomplish a week prior, due to downed trees.

“That was awesome, to see some of the effects of our work, that now because of us, the power company could come in and start getting power to people,” said Petryszyn.

Other Relief Efforts

Lexington Books for Relief is a new organization that aims to turn books into hurricane relief.

According to its website, “Lexington Books for Relief was founded in response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene. With billions of dollars in damage affecting multiple states across the Appalachian Mountains, we felt a strong need to contribute to the recovery efforts from our home in Lexington, Virginia. Through our book buyback service, we are committed to donating to various relief funds, doing our part to support affected communities in the most impactful way possible.”

Donors are encouraged to gather unwanted books and contact Lexington Books for Relief to arrange a drop-off or pick-up. The organization will “calculate their value by comparing prices across multiple buyback platforms,” and then donate those profits to trusted relief organizations like the American Red Cross, All Hands and Hearts, and World Central Kitchen.

More information can be found on their website at www.lexingtonbooks4relief. com.

A cakewalk fundraiser for hurricane relief has been scheduled for Nov. 9 from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Palmer Community Center located at 1230 Blue Grass Trail. Proceeds will be donated to the God’s Pit Crew disaster response team.

The event is sponsored by a coalition of local churches: Union View Advent Church, Collierstown Baptist Church, Collierstown United Methodist Church, Mount Horeb United Methodist Church, Oxford Presbyterian Church, Collierstown Presbyterian Church, and Rapps Mill Church.