Restore Valle Crucis UMC After Hurricane Helene

My name is Reverend Dr. Mike Marcela. I am the Pastor of Valle Crucis United Methodist Church. I live in Vilas, NC, about five miles from the church as it does not have a parsonage.

Valle Crucis UMC is a historic country church in Valle Crucis, NC--about five miles outside of Boone, NC. The church was started in 1862. The current Sanctuary was built on the site of the original church in 1879. An addition consisting of a Fellowship Hall, Kitchen, bathrooms and four additional rooms, plus a second and third floor was added in 1989.

Our church was hit hard by Hurricane Helene. We had over two feet of water in the Sanctuary, Fellowship Hall and all bottom floor rooms. So far we have pulled out all the carpet and padding, paneling and cut sheetrock throughout the building. We found out recently that the flooring in the whole bottom floor will have to be replaced.

Our estimate of the cost of the repairs needed to get our Sanctuary and building back to normal will be $200,000. Funds collected will be used to: Replace subflooring throughout the building, replace carpeting and padding throughout the building, repair sheetrock in the Fellowship Hall and bottom floor rooms and to replace paneling in our Sanctuary. We are a small church with average Sunday Service attendance around 23 people. Our church is landmark and center of our community and we need to get it back to a functioning status for not only our church members, but for the surrounding area, the nearby school and the community it serves.