Thursday, September 28, 2023
By Michelle Wagner | Outer Banks Voice on July 15, 2022
While its summer season in Dare County is ending, the non-profit Christian organization Carolina Cross Connection (CCC) has been here since the beginning of June doing home repairs for residents in need – from building ramps and stairs to constructing porches, painting and doing light yard work. And it plans to keep coming back.
Based in Gastonia, NC, the organization hosts weekly home repair summer camps in several North Carolina communities. Participants include youth and adults from various churches in North Carolina and beyond.
CCC has three ministries, the home repair ministry, an urban ministry that works out of Asheville, and a ministry that does work in Honduras. In 2022, the organization celebrated its 35th year. Last year, more than 400 students and adults attended the home repair camps and more than 135 homes were worked on and repaired in 14 North Carolina counties.
Camp Director Emily Wyant said Dare County was chosen this summer because of its susceptibility to hurricanes and other storms.
“We came to Dare County to see if we could help people who maybe had their ramp washed away or their wood is deteriorating because of storms and things like that,” Wyant said. The last time CCC was in Dare County was in 2019, but due to the COVID pandemic, it wasn’t able to return until this year. The week of July 11 marked the group’s last weekly camp here, and it has completed more than 20 projects for county residents this summer.
“We’ve been working with community contacts, such as [the Department of Social Services] or senior citizen centers to find referrals for people who may need work done,” she added. The campers are housed at Manteo Middle School and go out and work in the community during the day and participate in camp activities in the evening.
“We are here to get to know the community and to love the community,” Wyant said. “Our motto is connecting churches to communities.” Wyant says that CCC provides all the materials and products needed for the repairs it does, which are funded through donations. And the staff is trained in construction.
“We’re able to teach each and every camper how to do whatever it is that they’re doing safely – whether that is using a circular saw or a miter saw or something else,” she said. “So we have eleven-year-olds out there with miter and circular saws, or whatever else, and demolishing things and doing whatever is necessary to complete the project.”
As for CCC’s intention to return to Dare County next year, Wyant said, “We have started to really get to know people in Dare County and we plan to come back for as many years as possible. The ministry is 35 years old, and we’ve stuck with most of our places that will have us back for as long as we can.”
For more information about CCC or to donate, visit www.carolinacross connection.org.
Go to comments
