BURNSVILLE, N.C. — What started the school year as an honors carpentry class, has now transformed into a calling for students at Mountain Heritage High School in Yancey County.
For the last 15 years, Jeremy Dotts has taught carpentry and masonry at Mountain Heritage in its state-of-the-art warehouse designed specifically for building modular homes.
“When the flood or when the storm hit, right away, when we started to get power back, and we could communicate with the outside world, I knew we were in a unique position right here with this program to work on the rebuilding process,” Dotts said.
When classes resumed, he found a way to partner with a new nonprofit, Rebuilding Hollers, to fund their projects.
“We're able to buy the building materials, so that they can just keep building,” said Rebuilding Hollers Founder Stephanie Johnson.
Right away, the students got to work.
“I mean, if you're a homeowner and you have a damaged home right now, finding a contractor is hard enough,” Dotts said. “So, knowing that we are turning out the next generation of builders to work on this process and then in turn, they stay within this community.”
They all grabbed saws, hammers and nails to start building homes for those in need.
“There's still a lot of work to be done,” student Nick Pelton said. “I mean, it's being done gradually, obviously, but it's going to take years to get back to what it was before.”
Pelton lives in the Celo area of Yancey County.
“My road was really, really bad. One of the worst in the county,” Pelton said. “A lot of houses were torn away, and I was fortunate to be still living in my house currently.”
It's a fortune that has motivated Pelton and his fellow classmates to work even harder to help those around them.
“You don't fully understand what's going on until you live it,” Pelton said. “And when you go through it, you fully understand them. But it is hard to explain to people. They just don't fully understand and grasp everything.”
It's a passion senior Andrew Carpenter said has given him the motivation to finish school.
“So, we're cutting the top and bottom plates for the walls in this next house,” Carpenter said. “We got to cut or at 16 now, six at 16 and 4 at 8 foot.”
Carpenter said his family’s house was spared from Helene, but not everyone was so lucky.
“My grandparents were, they fared a little worse,” Carpenter said. “They had their basement washed out. They lost a lot.”
The first few weeks after the storm, Carpenter said he considered dropping out of school.
“I think I might have dropped out,” Carpenter said. “I couldn't imagine sitting in a classroom.”
But when he heard the carpentry class would be helping to rebuild homes in the community, he decided to return to the classroom.
“Honestly, if I didn't have this in high school, I don't know what I would be doing,” Carpenter said. “This has saved my high school experience.
Through the program, Carpenter said he’s been able to get certifications and hands-on experience building modular homes. But most importantly, it’s helped him give back.
“It gets me out of bed in the morning,” Carpenter said. “But I feel like I haven't done enough when everybody else tells me I've done a lot. I'll be staying after school every day to work on these more as much as I can. I feel like this is the best thing I can do to help people in the way they need it now.”
The program is giving the students lifelong skills, while helping to rebuild their communities.
“We are in a long rebuild process,” Dotts said. “This is their life. They live here, and I wanted them to be able to give back to the community that they're going to eventually stay in.”
The Mountain Heritage Carpentry program is always looking for more donations.
So far, they have been receiving most of their donations through Rebuilding Hollers, which has partnered with them to give them donation funding and supplies as they continue to rebuild homes.
