North Carolina students building tiny home for Helene victim
BURNSVILLE, NC (WGHP) — At Mountain Heritage High School in Yancey County, the sounds of saws and hammers fill the air.
To those in that part of Yancey County, it's the sound of hope. Students in Jeremy Dotts' Advanced Carpentry class are building a tiny house that will go to help a victim of Hurricane Helene.
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Says Dotts, 'We literally started in January on the very first house and that's what you see right over there.'
This house is special for a number of reasons. Hurricane Helene hit their community hard, so they all felt and saw the loss firsthand.
According to Dotts, 'The floodwaters were really what hit me and see more than anything because we have really two major rivers that flood that come through. Yancey County, that just wiped-out whole areas. So it's been it's been devastating.'
Jesse Taylor, a senior advance carpentry student, remembers it well.
'There was trees down all over the roads. Driveways were destroyed. A lot of my neighbors' driveways . We live next to a Creek, rocks everywhere in the yards. Just a lot of damage. It was really sad to see,' he said.
But knowing they are a part of the rebuilding and healing process helps.
'They (the students) have bought in completely to what they're doing. Their hearts are in it. They know who this house is going to. They know that the foundations that they're working with, like rebuilding hollers is, you know, their hearts in the right place with doing this to help our community members,' said Dotts.
And while they are raising the walls, their level of experience has gone up as well.
'I have 18 kids in here building 3 individual projects, so they're not always able to get to me right away,' Dotts says. 'They have to figure that out and make those mistakes and in the process of making those mistakes, they really learn.'
Plus, he says they are also learning something that can't be taught in any book: empathy and compassion.
'That is something that you it's very difficult to teach kids to do, but if you instill it in them. They really get it. And they love it. They really do buy into it.'
For the students it makes them feel useful in the clean up and rebuilding.
'It's great being able to get the experience and give back to the community just to help someone that's needing it,' said senior Carter Tabor.
Jesse Taylor added, 'Yeah, it's brought back, you know, lot of hope getting back in here after the hurricane. It's pretty nice getting able to work and give back to the community.'
A community that recognizes and needs their help. This house was paid for with donations to the Rebuilding Hollers Foundation. They are hoping to build many more homes in the future as they try to regain what once was.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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