N.C. Baptists on Mission commit to rebuilding homes

Deyton School would serve as hub for 5-6 years

  • MNJ Photo/Eric Haggart. Mitchell County Schools is in the process of selling Deyton Elementary School to N.C. Baptists on Mission. The Baptist organization plans to use the building to house volunteers coming to help rebuild homes lost to Hurricane Helene. The organization expects to be involved in rebuilding for five to six years in areas in Mitchell, Yancey and Avery counties. Residents such as those in hard hit Relief, NC, pictured above, would benefit from the work of Baptists on a Mission.
    MNJ Photo/Eric Haggart. Mitchell County Schools is in the process of selling Deyton Elementary School to N.C. Baptists on Mission. The Baptist organization plans to use the building to house volunteers coming to help rebuild homes lost to Hurricane Helene. The organization expects to be involved in rebuilding for five to six years in areas in Mitchell, Yancey and Avery counties. Residents such as those in hard hit Relief, NC, pictured above, would benefit from the work of Baptists on a Mission.
    Mariel Williams
    editor@mitchellnews.com

    The old Deyton Elementary School building will be used as a hub for building homes for hurricane and flood victims if a planned sale to N.C. Baptists on Mission goes through.

    The Board of Education has voted to accept the Baptists’ bid of $775,000, significantly more than the starting price of $750,000.

    “Mitchell County commissioners will vote on the 19th whether to match [the] bid or let [the] sale go through,” Mitchell County Schools Superintendent Chad Calhoun said. 

    The county has the legal right to block the sale and purchase the building itself. However, at this time no one in county government has indicated an interest in doing so. If the county allows the sale to go through, Calhoun said the transfer of ownership should take place on Nov. 20.

    N.C. Baptists on Mission, formerly the N.C. Baptist Men’s Association, already operates volunteer hubs like what it has planned for Deyton in other parts of the state.

    “We do a lot of disaster relief,” said Richard Brunson, executive director of N.C. Baptists on Mission. “But we also do longer-term rebuilds. ... We have three rebuild sites, centers we call them, in eastern North Carolina since Hurricane Florence. We’re still rebuilding homes from Florence — we’ve done close to 2,000 homes since Florence.

    Currently the organization is operating out of First Baptist Church in Spruce Pine and 14 other sites in Western North Carolina. The proposed rebuild center in Spruce Pine would serve Mitchell, Avery and Yancey counties.

    Brunson said that in his organization’s experience, recovery from a disaster of this magnitude takes several years, making it worthwhile to purchase, rather than rent, a building for a new rebuild center.

    “We think that’s going to be five or six years,” Brunson said.

    The Deyton building will require some remodeling before it will be suitable for housing volunteers, including adding fire sprinklers, showers and other features.

    “The school’s nice because it’s in good shape; it also already has a cafeteria so we wouldn’t have to do that,” Brunson said. “We’re going to use it year-round.”

    Brunson said that most rebuilding will probably not take five to six years, but there will be some home replacement projects that are more challenging.

    “The people who need new housing, that, a lot of times, takes more time,” he said. “Some of those people are not going to be able to rebuild where their house was. That’s a process.”

    Baptists on Mission has a long-term plan for helping with rebuilding because there may be either physical or legal obstacles to rebuilding homes in their previous location.

    “They’ll be condemning some property; they’re going to be trying to find new property,” Brunson said. “Every disaster’s different, but I can speak for Florence — it took a long time to make the more complicated decisions like that.”

    Brunson said a wide variety of volunteers will come stay at the center for different amounts of time, most staying for around a week.

    “We have a big variety of volunteers — some are very skilled; they do it for a living and they’re just volunteering [because] they want to help people,” he said. “Some are not skilled at all — they’re going to be helpers.”