‘Heartbreaking’ trip to Old Fort affirmed their commitment to serve others through the Rural Medicine Pathway Program.
As Angela Kim and her fellow Carolina students approached the small mountain town of Old Fort, North Carolina, they realized that pictures hadn’t done justice to the devastation Hurricane Helene wrought in the western part of the state.
Even from the highway, the students could see mobile homes submerged in water, cars crushed by collapsed structures and houses that were still uninhabitable two months after the storm struck.
The moment was especially sobering for Kim, a junior majoring in biology with minors in creative writing and medical anthropology, who had grown up only an hour down the road from Old Fort in the equally small town of Cherryville. Seeing the damage reaffirmed why she made the trip in the first place — because she wanted to help.
Five Rural Medicine Pathway Program scholars took part in the relief trip funded by a grant from the Carolina Center for Public Service. Joined by two mentors, they left Chapel Hill at 5 a.m. Nov. 22 for Old Fort, where they put in nearly 30 hours of volunteer work, clearing debris from a single-family home that had been ravaged by Helene.
“I’ve gone to the mountains my entire life, so seeing it in real life, all the destruction, it was just so heartbreaking,” Kim said. “We cleared out dirt and debris, mud, rotted wood and any unsalvageable belongings. It just showed how people can come together as a community to help and that something beautiful can come out of such an awful thing.”
The trip was organized by Maribel Borger, co-director of the Rural Medicine Pathway Program, who partnered with N.C. Baptists on Mission to identify a home in need of relief work. The house the students worked on had been flooded by 5 feet of water, with mud piled up in the kitchen, belongings strewn throughout the property and severe damage to the home’s interior.
Serving one’s community is a key tenet of the Rural Medicine Pathway Program. Founded in 2016, the program is a collaboration between Carolina Covenant and the UNC School of Medicine that supports Covenant scholars as they pursue health careers in rural areas.
The program typically places students in clinical settings in rural areas over the summers — like Kim, who shadowed a plastic reconstructive surgeon last summer. But the program also encourages community service efforts throughout the year.
Borger and others on her team arrive at First Baptist Church in Old Fort, North Carolina, to provide aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. (Courtesy of Borger)
“This trip was definitely aligned with the mission of what we do,” said Borger, who accompanied the students to Old Fort. “We try to serve the rural counties in North Carolina. Usually it’s on the rural primary care side; that’s our longitudinal goal. But we also serve immediate needs like this one, and so we’re happy to have done something.”
Borger said she hopes to lead more trips to western North Carolina in the coming months. She praised the five program scholars for their hard work and willing attitude, and several of them expressed interest in future trips.
One of the scholars, senior Addison Pulliam, said she was so inspired by the trip that she started applying to graduate programs in social work as soon as she got home.
“The most heartbreaking thing was we got to come back home to our apartments and our dorms, but those people are stuck there, and their only option is to rebuild or find somewhere else to live,” Pulliam said.
“There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done, and so I was really glad that we could go and help — maybe in a small way. But we were able to do something for them.”