We're Jayden and Kim from Roanoke, Virginia. We'd spent everything we had on a beach wedding in Waves for Friday September 25. We got onto the island at 4 a.m. on Wednesday. About an hour later, the nor'easter washed out NC 12 behind us. Our families were stuck on the mainland. The backyard we'd planned to marry in was underwater. Thirty thousand dollars we couldn't get back, and no way to reschedule.

Then a friend posted about it on Facebook, and Hatteras Island did what Hatteras Island does.

Stacey Saunders at Frisco Woods Campground gave us a venue, lodging and an officiant for free. DJ Kel gave us music. Restaurants and businesses stuck on the same side of the washout sent food. We told the island everyone was invited, and about 400 cars showed up. We got married surrounded by hundreds of strangers who decided we were family for the night. Local news covered it countless times. FOX and CBS are covering it this week.

We can't repay that. But we can help with something the island has been asking for since 2019.

Frisco and Buxton are the last villages on Hatteras with no sidewalk. Locals and visitors walk and bike the shoulder of NC 12, the same highway that floods, in traffic that surges every summer. Stacey chairs the Frisco-Buxton Pathway Project because she watched a cyclist get hit right across from Tavern on 12. Frisco Woods paid out of pocket to build the first 1,400 feet in 2024. The full plan is a 7.6-mile paved multi-use path from the Frisco Bathhouse beach access to Buxton Back Road, and Dare County is chasing federal grants for the next 1.25-mile phase. Grants require local match. That's where this money goes.

Help us raise money to send directly to Frisco-Buxton Pathway Project Inc., the nonprofit building and maintaining the path.

If you saw our story on the news and wanted to send a wedding gift, this is the gift. Give it to the island.

Thank you, Hatteras. We'll be back every year.

— Jayden & Kim, Kim's Companion Care