REBUILDING LIVES, ONE HOME AT TIME

Knox County DR team shows ‘staying power’ in Del Rio area

DEL RIO — Hurricane Helene left behind more than just watermarks on kitchen walls and silt-caked living rooms. It left individuals grappling with homelessness and isolation.

For the Knox County Baptist Association, the disaster became a calling that has stretched nearly a year and counting.

“Whoever expected a hurricane to affect Upper East Tennessee?” said Stanley Roach, who has served as director of missions for the Knox County Baptist Association for 35 years. “You see the same disasters elsewhere, except you don’t ever expect it to hit close to home.”

The association has completed three home rebuilds and continues work on a fourth, coordinating volunteers, funds and faith-based outreach in communities still scarred by Helene’s impact.

Four homes, four stories

Their first project took them to Elizabethton, where Emilee, a single woman, had lost her home to flooding. The association coordinated a complete rebuild using a combination of FEMA funds, Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief money and Knox County donations.

Emilee’s father, who lived nearby, became an unexpected evangelist for the work. “He would come in every few days and say, ‘I just told my people at work about God placing in this group. I knew it had to be God because it’s just unbelievable,’” Roach recalled. “He was praising more than we were.”

The second project involved an 82-year-old widower in the Del Rio area whose home required a complete rebuild. The project gained prominence when Tennessee first lady Maria Lee brought her workday volunteers to join the effort. Knox County coordinated teams of 14-15 people for the collaboration.

“He was there every day we worked,” Roach said of the homeowner. “He and I caught a time one day that we just went out to the barn and talked for about 30 minutes about his faith and everything. That’s real reassuring.”

Simultaneously, crews worked on a partial project for a Newport couple, hanging drywall and completing spray work.

The fourth home remains under construction — a complete interior rebuild that required raising the structure due to flood damage. The homeowners include a police officer and his wife, who is expecting their fourth child.

“She’s going to be able to move in before the baby comes,” Roach said.

Long-term commitment

The Knox County association operates without a dedicated disaster relief budget, relying entirely on donations. For these projects, they’ve spent $7,000-$8,000 to hire contractors for sheetrock and finish work, accelerating completion by about two weeks. Additional funding for the individuals’ homes came from the Appalachian Service Project, FEMA and local contributions.

“The most amazing thing to me was how giving the people were,” Roach said. “We’ve always collected donations for all disasters.”

The association typically deploys teams of 12-15 volunteers from five or six member churches, with additional smaller teams working independently.

Despite completing four homes, the need remains overwhelming. Cocke County alone has 80 pending requests for assistance, and some homes along the French Broad River remain untouched.

“We could work every day here probably for the next nine to 12 months and still have work to do,” Roach said. “As long as we can get people to go and who are interested in doing it, we’ll continue.”

Faith-based approach

But the association’s disaster relief philosophy emphasizes both physical reconstruction as well as spiritual reconstruction.

“We try to use every opportunity we can to share Christ with them,” Roach said.

This approach reflects the broader Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief model, which Roach said distinguishes their work from other relief organizations through nonstop presence. Roach recalled how the Knox County association remained in Kentucky for three years following tornado damage and in Waverly, Tenn., for nearly a year after major flooding.

“That’s one big point that Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief has that many organizations don’t have,” Roach said. “We’ve seen that over and over.”

Their commitment not only represents the determination of their volunteers to see their neighbors through to recovery but also the scale of ongoing need.

“They understand now that we’re going to be there until the end,” Roach said. “We’re going to finish it.”

Visit TNDisasterRelief.org/ariseandbuild for information on getting involved and/or to financially contribute. B&R