Help Vickie & Her Family Rebuild and Recover after Helene

Greetings, my name is Jennifer Begun and I live in Fletcher, North Carolina. I did not know most of my neighbors until the week Helene hit our community beyond repair. My fiancé and I had several large trees fall in our yard, but our neighbors were not so lucky.

The first day of the storm, we walked down our street to find Cane Creek, normally about 10-15 feet wide, looking about half a mile wide from what we could tell. Streets and homes were flooded, and there were trees down in every direction, completely trapping us and our neighbors. Realizing we wouldn't be able to leave for some time, we began walking to check on neighbors and help clear trees. That was when we met Vickie and Terrance and their three children in their backyard. We realized they were in shock and saw they had two trees in their home, the first that had crashed in their bedroom as they were sleeping the night of the storm.

The road they live on is privately maintained and was slower to get cleared and have power restored, which affected their ability to get supplies and work to provide for their children. It is truly hard to put into words the impact of the psychological, physical, and spiritual impact of the storm. It is a struggle for this beautiful family to get through each day, stay warm, and work towards restoring a sense of normalcy for their children. Not to mention the recent devastating news that Vickie recently shared with me. During a doctor's appointment last week, an 11.4-inch mass was discovered in her abdomen, and she will be having a complicated surgery at the end of the month to remove it. She will, of course, have to be out of work and does not have a quiet and warm space to rest and heal after her surgery until their home gets repaired.

I ask you, please during this holiday season, to give, share, and pray for this family to get what they need to survive and heal. They are wonderful people who need support and love. Your donations will go to the cost of rebuilding their home, clearing debris, food, medical costs, furniture, clothes, and toys.

Vickie was touched deeply by the thought others might help support her family and wanted to share her story in her own words.

The morning of September 27th, 2024, we were shocked to wake up to the sound of a tree crashing into our bedroom. As we tried to gather ourselves and our two children that were inside the home, another tree came crashing into the two back bedrooms and caused so much damage both seen and unseen. With the roof and ceiling crushed in, it rained for 5 more hours, which flooded all of the bedrooms and caused us to lose all of our personal belongings, including furniture, shoes, clothes, toys, and so much more. Since that day, we have done our best to get through each day and care for ourselves and our children with an extensively damaged home that is open to the elements in the winter. We were denied FEMA and continue to try to get assistance from them with no help yet. We also did not get enough money from our home insurance to cover the cost of the repairs, let alone the other numerous costs we have had from surviving this event. We are grateful to Samaritan's Purse for helping remove the trees from our home but now have a pile of debris as tall as our house that we see day in and day out. We are currently all sleeping in the living room together and want nothing more than to be able to get our home repaired so I know my children will be warm and safe as well as have the space they need for their own healing and development. We have three wonderful children and one grandchild. They love arts and crafts, playing sports, and animals. I work in the medical field and my husband works serving the elderly. While we feel very blessed that we both had jobs to return to a few weeks after Helene, but the journey to recovery is a long road ahead of us with a struggle each day just to stay warm. Our paychecks unfortunately do not come close to covering the money needed in order for us to be warm and safe again. Bless you all for your help and support. It means more than I can express.