Just above and beyond what anyone could’ve asked for or expected. Eric Church, alongside Luke Combs and others, helped raise over $24.5 million for residents in western North Carolina that were devastated by historic flooding from Hurricane Helene with their Concert For Carolina benefit show last year, and Eric has gone onto start his Blue Print for the Blue Ridge initiative, which is the umbrella that his Blue Haven community is under. They have been working on that neighborhood in Avery county for months now, where a new community of homes are being built for those who lost everything in the floods. Families should be moving in soon if they haven’t already, and Eric has already purchased more land in the area to start another similar neighborhood because the need is so high. It’s been a massive undertaking, but Eric knew he wanted to use his portion of the money raise to purchase lands and build homes for residents to be able to stay in the place that they love and know. Eric didn’t want to just give the money away for the immediate needs like water and other life necessities, because as he pointed out in an interview with Jimmy Fallon, “America [is] really good at the 911 part” of immediate help, but the longer road to helping so many recover is much more complex and difficult: “That’s home for me. That’s where my soul is at rest. and when hurricane Helene happened, I’m from western North Carolina, and to see what happened there, the devastation, just was… I’ve never seen anything like it. And as we started to try to help, we did a ‘Concert for Carolina’ in Charlotte, myself, Luke Combs, James Taylor, Billy Strings all got together. We all got together and played, raised a bunch of money, and when we started to figure out how to allocate the money, the biggest question I had is, you know, obviously, where’s my portion of the money going? And in America, we’re really good at the 911 part. The water, and the diapers, and the right now. But we’re not real good at how we keep these communities together.” He went onto explain how he believes our country is “made up of little small towns” which are the backbone of America, and he thinks owning a home is the “American dream,” though many in these communities don’t have the ability or income to afford to buy a house, let alone completely rebuild one that got destroyed by Helene. Of course, there are a lot of factors that go into that, especially in these small mountain communities, but Eric wanted the people so horribly affected to be able to stay where their home is and thrive in spite of the circumstances. So, he decided to start his own program and give over 200 people in the mountains of western North Carolina a home of their own: “I believe America is made up of these little small towns, small town America is the backbone of what America is. And as I looked at how we could help, I think owning a home is the American dream. And too many times in America, because a lot of the places that are small towns, they have wage difficulties, they don’t have the industry there to make the money to own the home. So what we we decided to do is, to do something novel, and start our own program. And if you’re someone who has been integral to the community, if you’re someone who is going to be in the community long-term, we’re gonna build you home, we’re gonna give you that home. And we will have the first people in the homes before Thanksgiving, and we’ll end up doing probably 200 homes in western North Carolina.” It’s really unprecedented what he’s doing, and really is the ultimate gift for these people who have really been through hell, to put it mildly. 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. That’s the mountain way, though… you take care of your own, and in times of extreme crisis, you do everything you can to help your neighbors rebuild and thrive in the future. You can watch his interview here: Eric also put out “Darkest Hour” in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, of which the money made from the song will forever go towards helping with Hurricane Helene recovery efforts. “Darkest Hour” The post “Small Town America Is The Backbone” – Eric Church On Why Building A Community For Hurricane Helene Victims Is So Important To Him first appeared on Whiskey Riff.