Kentucky Tennessee Conference Volunteers Provide Critical Relief After Hurricane Helene

PAOLA MORA ZEPEDA

Emmet Stevens, Highland Academy sophomore, clears fallen branches as part of the disaster relief efforts in North Carolina.

Xander Ordinola

Kentucky-Tennessee volunteers work in a destroyed home near Swannanoa River, N.C., following Hurricane Helene.

Xander Ordinola

A member of the Woodbury, Tenn., Church removes damaged walls from a local home.

Xander Ordinola

Davi Barkholz (left), Ellie Cortez, and Saniya Linvingstone take a break to pose for the camera. Witnessing the hurricane’s aftermath in person was an eye-opening reminder of the communities' needs in its wake.

Xander Ordinola

Following the devastation of Hurricane Helene, volunteers from the Kentucky-Tennessee Conference traveled to Fletcher, Asheville, and Hendersonville, North Carolina, to assist in the recovery efforts. Teams from Highland Academy and other churches across the Conference came together to clear debris, manage Points of Distribution (PODs), and help homeowners clean and restore their flood-damaged homes.

Among the volunteers was Maggie Carlson, Highland Academy sophomore, who was motivated to take action after seeing reports of the hurricane’s destruction on her phone.

“I kept on seeing [pictures] all over social media, and I just felt bad about all of the damage,” said Carlson. Along with her classmates, she spent days chopping wood and removing debris. “It’s eye-opening — you don’t realize how bad it is until you’re actually there.”

According to Mike Hewitt, Conference vice president and disaster relief ministries director, the volunteers’ work proved crucial for the local communities, particularly for those who lacked the resources or physical ability to manage the cleanup on their own.

“One woman we helped had lived in her house for 18 years, and had never experienced anything like this,” said Hewitt. “It was heartbreaking, but she was very thankful when we came to help with the cleanup.”

A major contributor to the success of these relief efforts was the training many volunteers had undergone through the CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) program. The Kentucky- Tennessee Conference has trained more than 100 members in this program, equipping them with vital skills like first aid, search and rescue, and safe debris removal. These skills allowed the volunteers to respond effectively to the community’s needs.

For some volunteers, like Perry Louden from the Woodbury, Tenn., Church, the journey to providing disaster relief began long before Hurricane Helene struck. Louden explained that his team had been planning to engage in disaster relief for more than a year, motivated by the Reedyville, Tenn., tornadoes in April 2023.

“We weren’t able to help in that disaster, and we realized we needed training,” said Louden. The team worked with the Conference and the Collegedale, Tenn., based ministry, 2Serve, to train 20 church members for disaster response. Since then, the Woodbury Church has helped on multiple relief missions, including the Mayfield, Ky., floods in July 2023 and the Middle Tennessee tornadoes in December 2023. “When [people] find out that we are doing this for free, they are overwhelmed. We prayed with them and remind them they are not alone.”

Kentucky-Tennessee | December 2024