Spotlighting the families who are making Blue Haven a very special community.
Eric Church and his foundation Chief Cares have been hard at work on the new community Blue Haven in Western North Carolina, which was aided by the money they raised during their star-studded Concert For Carolina. They had purchased land near Newland in Avery County to build 37 homes for those who lost everything during Hurricane Helene just about two years ago to the day.
Hurricane Helene made landfall in western Florida in September, and the devastation is still very real in many parts of western North Carolina. The Category 4 hurricane brought sustained winds over 100 miles per hour, and mostly as a result of the flooding that followed, over 230 people people lost their lives. More than half of them in North Carolina.
Eric Church is of course a North Carolina native, and he immediately stepped up and released “Darkest Hour,” signing over all the rights to the song to the people of North Carolina. Then, he teamed up with fellow North Carolina native and country music superstar, Luke Combs, for the aforementioned Concert for Carolina, an all-star charity show at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. The two were able to raise a whopping $24 million for those affected by the storm.
The project is officially titled “Blueprint for the Blue Ridge,” and Eric said this about it:
“Any time a community needs help, it’s always the community next door that comes running to help. And there are no communities next door. They’ve all been devastated. So we’ve made it our mission at Chief Cares that we’re going to be the community next door…
We’re going to go and keep those people in their community, put a roof over their head, let ’em interact with their community, let ’em be a part of their community, and let ’em help rebuild the community.
It goes way beyond 100 homes. I hope it’s a lot of homes. A lot more than 100 homes. I hope it’s about building the businesses and building the community back. That’s what we’re committing to at Chief Cares, and we would love your help.”
He also talked about how special the area is to him personally:
“I’ve wrote every album of my career but one in Avery county, right here. So creatively it’s been real special to me, but spiritually it’s the place that my soul’s at rest. It’s the place that I get away from what I do in the world to come here and recharge. So it’s the most special place in the world to me, the mountains of this area.”
Eric has a home in Avery county himself, and obviously this is all very personal to him. It’s just been amazing to see him step up like this in such a huge way.
I’ve heard Eric talk about how he hopes this can become a blueprint for other areas that will inevitably be affected by disaster, and I just can’t say enough about how incredibly impressive it is that he’s doing all of this for the people in his community.
In a post on Instagram marking two years since the hurricane, Eric shared that the families are officially moving in as the project wraps up:
“Two years ago, Hurricane Helene tore through Western North Carolina. The devastation was staggering – entire neighborhoods leveled, families displaced. And yet, through it all, people showed up. Neighbors came together, and the resilient spirit of this region took on new life as the community began to rebuild.
Chief Cares, founded by Eric and Katherine Church, has always stood with people in need. In the aftermath of Helene, they launched Blue Haven to help people not just recover, but remain rooted in the place they call home.
A year and a half ago, Blue Haven broke ground on its first housing community, Blue Haven Avery. Today, the first 12 families are officially home, and the remaining 26 families will move in over the next few months.
Blue Haven was never about just giving families a place to live. It’s about helping them build a solid foundation so they feel supported enough to turn around and extend a hand to someone else. Meet some of the families who call Blue Haven home and watch the full video on YouTube. To learn more or get involved visit bluehaven.org.”
Talk about walking the walk… Eric Church has done something above and beyond what could’ve ever been expected, and he’s truly making a massive difference in the lives of so many people simply because he loves the community and wants to help his neighbors. Whether on this scale, or a much smaller gesture, I think that’s something we can all learn from and take with us in every day life.
In the YouTube video, you can see shots of the neighborhood, the houses, and even hear from some of the families who have officially moved in to their new homes. The first 12 families are officially moved in, and the remaining 26 families will move in over the next few months.
To hear directly from these people and families just gives an incredible perspective on just how significant and life-changing this project is for so many people who lost everything, or spent much of their time and efforts helping those after the storm.
They all talked about how important it is for them to call themselves home owners now, and what it means for their life and legacy, after such a devastating last couple of years.
One of them said of the whole hurricane experience:
“Although it was detrimental, it took the community and brought it together.”
Of receiving a new home, one woman said:
“I prayed for a shack, and God gave me a mansion.”
Just incredible and truly a beautiful way to explain what this all means.
There will be 37 families living at Blue Haven in total, and everyone spotlighted in the video talked about how they want to pay it forward to anyone they can going forward, and I think that really captures the essence of this project and how much good is going to come from it beyond just the houses and the neighborhood.
I could go on, but really, hearing firsthand from these people is the only way to understand the full impact.
You can watch the full video here, and I highly recommend it:
