After several weeks in TN, we had to go back to Huntsville, AL for a few weeks to take care of some things. After being home for a week, we didn’t quite feel like we were done helping with the recovery/rebuild effort in East TN. We had been talking with Kritter and the Mendelsons a lot and ultimately decided we were coming back for an unknown amount of time. As we were making our plans to travel back to Greeneville, we were approached with an idea from Kritter and Jennifer with Crossroads Cowboy Church of Greeneville. This conversation led to us agreeing to become the Crossroads Cowboy Churchs’ camper placement team. We were honored and excited to take this opportunity to further help.
We started by buying 3 campers in the North Alabama area and convoying them up to Greeneville. We then arrived back in Greeneville on 12/10/24 to start our new mission. This mission would ultimately take MANY twists and turns. We would hear many stories of survival, heroism, comradery, and experience people just being great people and helping!
All of the campers after the initial 3 would end up being donation campers. Several came out of the Grand Rapids, MI area, a couple out of Ohio and some from local folks. All of them had their share of issues or had things that needed to be fixed. We completed many repairs that ranged from rebuilding an entire back wall, replacing a water heater that had rotted out alot of the side wall, replaced faucets, replaced a few toilets, fixed a few bad roof leaks, and so much more. Lindsay would pull all of the things needed to stuff the camper full so the families could have a semi-fresh start. She made sure they had everything they may need like, food, blankets, clothes, toiletries, and much more.
The “not so fun” part of this mission……….The unfortunate part of trying to help those in need is that disasters bring out the scammers. As we would learn there were so many people out there claiming to be flood victims that were only out to get free stuff. There were many people “working the system” and they were succeeding. Such as 1 lady who ended up with 3 campers and a donated car, this lady was telling stories that involved kids that she didn’t have custody of and it took about 3 months for all of her lies to catch up to her. She would ultimately end up on the Sheriff’s Do Not Help List and she had everything taken away from her. We had another situation where someone was house sitting for a friend that had been incarcerated for 18 months when the flood happened, the “friend” was incarcerated for stealing gas from a non-profit in hard it Swannanoa, NC area. She again used children she didn’t have to try to get access to a free camper and claimed she worked for the Billy Graham Training Christian Retreat Center among so many other lies. The unfortunate part of all of these people lying to get things took away precious from those that needed help! We also learned that the vetting process would take a huge toll on you mentally! Some folks have some really compelling stories and these are the things that make helping people difficult in some cases. For every family we would be able to help, there were 5 others trying to scam us for a free camper.
On the other hand, there were only 15 days until Christmas at this point and still so many people needed housing. The FEMA vouchers were ending, area campgrounds were packed or too expensive, people were trying to figure out where they were going go because they couldn’t go home; it was gone! Luckily some of the people we were able to help had family or friends that would allow us to setup housing on their property. Some cases we supplied generators and had to educate them on how to boondock for a while.
The Christmas spirit was a little more somber post Helene for sure. Many families were trying to dig out and rebuild or just trying to cope with the devastation. Christmas for many people is about several different things but for children, it’s mainly about the gifts under the tree. Crossroads Cowboy Church received a $5,000 donation to help with providing toys for the kids! Jen enlisted Lindsay and I with going out to buy all of these gifts! The catch was, we had 12 hours to spend it! We managed to make it happen and we made the delivery 2 hours away to Black Mtn, NC the next morning! Thanks to CCC and the generous donation; we were able to deliver 2 truck beds and a trailer load of toys and bikes to The Railyard for the Red Truck Men event. We were not able to stay for the event, but it was a huge success.
We would ultimately place/give away 22 campers packed with all sorts of items like; food, clothing, blankets, living essentials, toys, generators, etc…. between December 11, 2024 and March 8, 2025. We also made many repairs on campers we placed and repairs on other campers placed by other organizations. None of this would’ve been possible without the amazing people at Crossroads Cowboy Church of Greeneville.
Thinking back, these 3 stories are just a few of the many we’ve heard. These people are resilient!
- Ms Olivia is a flood victim we placed a camper for. She and her fiancé were evacuating Hendersonville, NC and they rescued a few people on their way out. 1 of these people was a wheelchair bound elderly lady that was trapped in her home. The house had security bars on the windows and the doors were locked. Olivia and Kelvin noticed the water was up to the ladies knees so they broke the front door down to rush in to get her out of the house. There were a few others they helped through the waters to higher ground. They were then faced with closing roads and bridges washing away. They eventually were able to get out and ended up in Knoxville at Olivia’s mother’s house. If it wasn’t for their bravery, there would’ve been a few others added to the death toll. These are the stories that sent chills over my body.
- Mr Green from Bumpas Cove, Embreeville, TN. This guy is something! We talked with him for quite a while too and he allowed Lindsay to take several photos and drone footage of the area. He lost about 40% of his property to the Nolichucky River. He tried to tell us about what he experienced during the flood but he became too emotional and we didn’t push for anything he didn’t want to tell us. He did tell us the only thing he had left was his momma, and she refuses to move back to Bumpas Cove because Tim couldn’t promise her a flood wouldn’t happen again. A week after the flood, his dad passed away. Mr Green is a simple man and of few words. He suffers from Lung Cancer and is not getting treatments. His only wish was to sit on a couch in his home by the river again and live what time has left out there. We parked 2 campers on his property. 1 for the homeless guys that were helping in the community and a couple weeks later, we delivered his 5th wheel with a big picture window in the back and it has the couch he wanted.
- Cowboy from Union Mills, NC and he had extensive damage due to trees falling through the house and that led to major mold damage. 3 months after the storm, a group made repairs to his house and 24 hours later the entire house burnt to the ground, leaving absolutely nothing to salvage. And! The only vehicle he had left was a Dodge Dakota but a tree fell on it and caved the roof in. But that didn’t stop Cowboy from driving it, this guy cut the roof off and took 1 of the doors off. He said “I had to do what I had to do!” We were able to bring him a camper stocked with essentials thanks to Project Waymaker out of Western NC.
This experience has taught us many things, and we can’t take life for granted. We must love one another, Mother Nature can’t be messed with! All we can do is ride it out, hope for the best, pick up what’s left and move forward. Life is tough but we now know there is hope for those that are true to themselves no matter what their background is and no matter what their religious/spiritual beliefs are.
Post Camper Placements
Now that we have placed all of our campers, we were faced with a decision. That decision was to either stay in Greeneville to help rebuild or to carry on with our travels. We decided to stay for a few more months. We have a strong personal connection with the Mendelsons and feel like we could help take a lot of their stress off by working on their house and farm.
We were able to get all of their interior doors and trim at a great price from Wilson Lumber in Huntsville, AL. Kudzu Millworks provided a load of windows for them as well. We travelled back down a couple of times to pick up all of this material as they came available. We can’t express how much we and the Mendelsons appreciate these companies.
Special Thanks to:
- Crossroads Cowboy Church of Greeneville
- Pastor Tim Goss and Jennifer Goss
- Kimberly “Kritter” Malone
- Michelle Mace
- HNDS & FT (Sharee Perciful)
- Project Your Home (WNC)
- Project Waymaker (WNC)
- Samaritans Purse
- Second Harvest Food Bank
- BC We Care
- McMillan Farms
- Buffalo Disaster Relief
- Anna Williams
- Smith Enterprises, Inc
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