This Country Star Builds Homes for Hurricane Victims ‘in Dire Need’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Country crooner Eric Church is packing up his guitar and heading to Avery County, NC to help out families left homeless by Hurricane Helene.
“It is important work because of the large devastation, so we are planning to begin to work on more than our first site to help more families,” said John Blackburn, CEO of Church’s home-building project, Chief Cares Avery. “It is our hope to have an official groundbreaking near Easter and get families in the homes this summer.”
Last September, Church said he was “devastated by the destruction in the mountains of Western North Carolina. These are our family members, friends, and neighbors. The community we live in part of the year still has people stranded and desperate for extraction. The whole area is in dire need of help.”
“Anyone who knows anything about me knows what North Carolina and specifically this area in the mountains me to me personally as well as creatively,” he stated.
Church’s team plans to build 100 homes for families in Avery County and the nearby area. Their priority is to “keep these communities preserved and rebuilt” and address “longer term needs like creating jobs, rebuilding schools, and supporting local businesses.”
“Often when disaster strikes, funds flow in from great people wanting to help, but when the world turns its eye to the next devastation, a lot can get lost and fall through the cracks,” the Chief Avery Cares website says. “We are committed to the long-term rebuilding of these communities.”
Blackburn and Church’s wife Katherine Blasingame are “deeply involved” in the project and have been doing a lot of groundwork by finding properties and speaking with surveyors and engineers. The team has weekly Zoom meetings with Church and Blasingame, who Blackburn says “reach out to my local team to see what else they can do to support the flood victims.”
“The need is enormous, and both of the Church’s connect often with people directly impacted by the flood or those that are helping them,” Blackburn said. “Our energy has been used not only to build houses but to make sure the other needs of the community are being met by our organization.”
Last fall, Church released “Darkest Hour (Helene edit)” and donated the profits — $24.5 million — to charity. He played the song at a benefit concert for Carolina in October.
“I’ve been in the studio for a while, trying some different things and exploring creativity,” Church said at the time of the song’s release. “I had this song that I’d written, and the line that struck me in light of the recent devastation was ‘I’ll come running,’ because there are a lot of people out there right now who are in their darkest hour, and they need people to come running.”
READ MORE: GAF STAR THANKS FANS FOR SUPPORT FOLLOWING HURRICANE HELENE
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