PCCR connects volunteers with community needs
Rachel Hoskins
rhoskins@thefranklinpress.com
“I could stand on the sidelines, or I could be here” said 15-year-old Braxton Jarvis, standing in the midst of the old Food Lion building in Spruce Pine. The scene could best be described as organized chaos.
The previously vacated grocery store is now a place of bristling activity. Tables and pallets line the open floor stacked with food, clothes, diapers, baby formula, water, blankets and more.
It’s 3 p.m. on Thursday and the “store” closes at four. In the background you can hear an army of volunteers greeting shoppers with “Can I help you? How are you?”
At the table manned by Jarvis and fellow teenager Lauren Ford, a line forms. Shoppers are looking for propane. The weather turned cold last week in Spruce Pine and for those without electricity or other forms of heat, the coveted propane tanks will make a difference between being comfortable or cold. Ford smiles as she gives shoppers a form to fill out and directs them to drive around to the back of the building to pick up propane tanks.
“I go to church every week,” said Jarvis. “My church brought up the opportunity to be here and I just felt pulled by God to come here. I was recently baptized, and this just feels like something that God wanted me to do in my next step into my faith.”
Jarvis, along with Ford, and Caleb Hollett are all from Indiana. Miles from Spruce Pine and the epicenter of destruction left behind by Hurricane Helene.
“I was praying for y’all,” said Hollett. “And then my church brought up the opportunity to come here for a week, to have the opportunity to be the hands and feet… we’re the body, you know and we’re here to love on His kids. I’ve been learning about being a son of God and what that means... and that’s why I’m here.”
Jarvis, Ford and Hollett are in Spruce Pine for a week volunteering with Plain Compassion Crisis Response (PCCR). On Thursday they were working at the PCCR Distribution Center. The center is stocked with needed food and supplies including propane and is open to anyone with a need. Customers come in with a shopping cart and choose what they want. There’s no limits, no requirements, no judgement, no cost. The center which opened last week is expected to be operational for at least three months. Volunteers will rotate in and out on a weekly basis, many coming from other states – last week Indiana, all coming with servant’s hearts.
Jarvis said in the midst of devastation, leaf season happened.
“This community is beautiful,” said Jarvis pulling out his phone to display a photo he took earlier in the week. “I took this photo at a home where we were helping. They people were so nice. Everyone is so concerned about their neighbors, they are looking out for everybody except themselves. I was at a job one day and immediately the whole community came up to us and was offering us food and water. More than half the tools we used to clean up those jobs wasn’t even ours. People just offered them to us. Yeah, it’s a beautiful town.”
“It doesn’t matter how y’all were touched in the devastation,” said Hollett, who had stepped away to answer a question and have a moment of prayer with a shopper. “Your spirit about this has been to manifest the goodness of God in your lives.”
“It’s like the light of the world, the city on the hill, and it can’t be hidden,” said Jarvis.
The hub of the operation
Across the street, less than a quarter mile away is the hub of PCCR. Operating out of offices at 12350 Highway 226 S, (behind KFC), PCCR has been on the ground in Spruce Pine for almost four weeks. Tim McKinney heads up the local disaster response team.
“So we’re essentially a non-profit Christian organization that has an international as well as a domestic side,” said McKinney. “We’ve been here for about three weeks or so since the day after the storm. Obviously the first week was, as we all know, heavy search and rescue. And then we really transitioned to a stabilization phase where we bring in a large number of volunteers.”
On average PCCR has more than 100 volunteers a day on the ground in Mitchell County. McKinney said volunteers were there on their own time, and were professional crews of builders, construction workers, crane operators, landscape crews. They were helping dig out, shore up, stabilize the community.
People in need of help can visit the operation center and fill out a work order. Volunteers are matched with needs and assigned to help remove debris, clean out flooded homes, move fallen trees. There were a lot of hands and feet on the ground assisting clean up efforts for individuals and businesses during the first couple of weeks.
“We’ve done more that 450 work orders in the local community,” said McKinney.
“A work order essentially is a property were someone will go to with a crane system, harness system, or even a chainsaw team and basically either establish access or debris relief from a roof or things like that. And then we opened our distribution center, which will be here to serve the community for at least three months,” said McKinney. “People can go in there and get anything from baby supplies, food to wheelchairs, to radios.”
The distribution center is stocked by a combination of donors, large-scale donors, and the goodness of people, said McKinney. “We have established a supply chain that brings semi-loads almost every day. But our main priority right now is really identifying the next threat.”
In response to that “next threat” PCCR has rolled out their WARM Project. “We are looking to heat over 1,000 households in Mitchell, Avery and Yancey counties. And we’re really trying to identify the most vulnerable. So, we’re partnering with local church as well as fire departments.”
To date McKinney said they have help 515 households with the WARM project.
Fundraising through their nonprofit organization is allowing them to leverage their resources, their contacts and secure specific goods needed, including propane. Which circles back to the distribution center, which McKinney says will help residents prepare to get through the winter.
About PCCR
Plain Compassion Crisis Response (PCCR) is a non-profit humanitarian aid organization that was formed in the fall of 2014 as a response to the refugee crisis in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Their vision is to demonstrate God’s love by providing relief in areas of disaster that are not publicized widely and/or hard to access. The mission of PCCR is to equip volunteers with training and leadership skills needed to make a greater impact on the field and deploy them to the areas that they want to reach. PCCR is based in Pennsylvania.
“But, our employees come from all over the world. We have staff here but we have a large volunteer base from all over the country,” said McKinney. “We have teams from Colorado, Montana, Boston and they are usually professionals that have their own construction crews or extensive experience.”
Volunteers sign up at plaincompassion.org. PCCR vets teams and once they are approved, they are allocated to areas based on needs and skills. Those teams often work with local volunteers in the communities being served.
“It really takes your breath away, the number of local people who are volunteering,” said McKinney. “We’re all going to go back home at some point, to the comfort of our homes, and so many of these volunteers that are giving everything have also lost everything. It embodies the human spirit.”
Supporting volunteers
In an area hard hit like Mitchell County, volunteer groups coming into the area need to bring their own support system – lodging, transportation, food, equipment.
Volunteers with PCCR have a solid ground crew for support services. They are staying at the Bridge Church, which provides a large communal bunking area. PCCR has support services including cooks who provide three meals a day for volunteers.
“We have a large group from Indiana who are working at the distribution center this week,” said McKinney. “It’s been pretty cool to see them every morning. They have smiles on their faces and they can’t wait to get back to work. They really get to see the interpersonal side of the community. They pray with them. There’s no rushing. People get what the need. They are individuals that are just ready to listen.”
Committed and caffeinated
David Sillman is one of the community connections that is helping PCCR plug into Mitchell County. A Spruce Pine resident for more than 21 years, and a business owner, he and his partners have provided PCCR staff with a place to operate for the past month.
“Being able to connect PCCR with our resources has helped them be able to help our community,” said Sillman.
“We try and use different connections in the region to isolate, look at the hardest-to-reach, hardest-hit area, and really go in and attack that,” said McKinney. “We’ve been lucky enough to work with several local individuals, David Sillman and Nate Schlabach – they’ve just been incredible individuals, giving us offices to sleep in. They helped us in our efforts to establish relationships with the fire departments, sheriff’s department, even the local warehouse owner. They really facilitated the initial connections enabling us to have the successes we’ve had,” said McKinney.
Connecting resources also brought Provided Coffee into the fold. Outside the hub of PCCR on Thursday afternoon tired volunteers where getting a pick-me-up from the mobile Provided Coffee of Charlotte. Kohen Malz and Kenzie Fink were serving up lattes and java favorites to a steady stream of volunteers. The coffee wagon was sponsored by a spouse of one of the PCCR staff.
Justin Kauffman has been in Spruce Pine since Sunday.
“A lot of my focus has been trees,” said Kauffman as he waited for a fresh cup of coffee. “We brought down some equipment – a skid steer, brush grapple, excavator – we’ve been moving trees,” he said with a smile. “I love to help people. This was an opportunity to do something, to help someone.”
Which leads back to the mission of PCCR – helping people.
“We have this thing that we constantly say … if someone had lost their faith in humanity, they need just to come to Spruce Pine, right now in Western North Carolina and restore it,” said McKinney. “The thing we reiterate to everyone who comes through, whether they’re working a crane operation or cleaning showers across the street at night, it’s that every act of service matters. Yes, you might be removing a tree or using a chainsaw but lean into the individual soul you’re encountering. You have a powerful message to send, and maybe that message is just listening, right? And so, we really reiterate that the person in front of you matters. Take the time with them, invest in them. I think we’ve been able to do that.”
Need help?
The PCCR Distribution Center is in the old Food Lion store in the Spruce Pine Shopping Center. Hours are: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m., Monday – Friday.
The PCCR Operation Hub is located behind KFC on Hwy. 226 in Spruce Pine. You can inquire about services including tree and debris removal and welfare checks at this location. Email: pccrresponse@gmail.com or call (717) 915-9747