‘Endurance Festival’ Funnels Big Donation to Small Town Left Out of Helene Relief Funds

Even if you’ve been reading the news about Hurricane Helene’s massive destruction in North Carolina, you probably haven’t heard of Old Fort. This small town of about 800 people sits just a half-hour drive east of Asheville, which received national news coverage after the tropical storm ripped through the area in September.

Old Fort, however, was excluded from the relief funds flowing from Asheville’s Buncombe County. Many of the town’s residents lost their homes, and payouts from FEMA, the federal disaster agency, max out at $42,500.

As the town’s business and community leaders saw the desperate need among their neighbors, they decided to raise money with an outdoor event. This weekend saw the first-ever Old Fort Strong Endurance Festival, a mix of trail running and mountain biking. The result? Nearly $1 million raised for locals trying to rebuild their homes.

It’s the result of a partnership between event organizers Tanawha Adventures and Pisgah Productions — along with Camp Grier, which hosted the festival. The group still hopes to reach a fundraising goal of $2 million, with donations accepted until the end of the year.

While Asheville may receive lots of attention for its bustling downtown, it’s the smaller places like Old Fort that serve as gateways to North Carolina’s mountains, said Tanawha Adventures founder Brandon Thrower.

“To visit the mountains around Asheville, you have to go through these towns,” Thrower told GearJunkie this week. “These are the trailheads. So we just want to make sure that these towns and the people that live in them aren’t forgotten.” 

Waking Up to the Destruction

The flooding in North Carolina broke records across the state, causing even more destruction than the state’s Great Flood of 1916. Many Old Fort residents who lost their homes didn’t have flood insurance, as they’d never needed it. During Hurricane Helene, the waters from Old Fort’s Mill Creek rose so high that homes 400 feet away were ruined.

In total, at least 47 homes and buildings were destroyed in the small town, The Asheville Citizen Times reported in October. Two feet of water flooded the home of Old Fort resident Dane Gomez — and he thinks of himself as lucky.

“I had some neighbors who weren’t so fortunate,” Gomez told the newspaper. “I’m very grateful my home is in a fixable state. There’s at least four of my neighbors who completely lost their houses.”

In addition to flooding, the tropical storm has likely set a record for the number of downed trees. The powerful rain caused widespread mudslides, and many roads will likely stay closed for years to come, Thrower said. “You’ll go into one holler and it looks fine, and then you go to the next one over, and it looks like a bomb went off,” Thrower added. “It’s just catastrophic.”

Racers Raise Money for Neighbors

To help their friends and neighbors, the Old Fort Strong Endurance Festival relied on participants to help spread the word.

Organizers at Tanawha Adventures decided a week after the hurricane to organize an outdoors event to raise money. When registration opened in early October, they sold all 425 spots in just 2 days.

The festival took place Dec. 7-8 at Camp Grier, a nonprofit summer camp. It included several trail running and mountain biking races, with the price of admission covering the cost of the event.

To actually raise money for impacted residents, the event’s participants spread the word on social networks, asking friends and family to donate through a RunSignup campaign. Other money came from raffles. To date, they’ve raised over $956,000.

The fund is managed by Camp Grier, a nonprofit summer camp that has provided housing for displaced Old Fort residents since September.

Once Old Fort residents submit forms describing needs like home repair, then a fund manager reviews the requests, handing out up to $50,000 per person or family. So far, the fund has already given about $325,000 to 11 Old Fort families. That includes a full $50,000 to a woman who lost her entire home to Helene.

Now that they’ve reached nearly half the fundraising goal, Thrower and other organizers are hopeful they can convince businesses to fill in the gap. But so far, all the money raised has come directly from people like Collin Ihlenfeldt, a North Carolina resident who donated a Frameworks bike that raised $43,000 through a festival raffle.

“What a weekend. It’s a rare opportunity to create an impact greater than yourself,” Ihlenfeldt wrote in an Instagram post. “Witnessing dispersed communities come together at Camp Grier for #oldfortstrong was a truly rewarding experience; perhaps a feeling I’ll never have again. Helene changed our lives and our landscape, but she strengthened #WNC’s resolve.”

To help the Old Fort Fund reach their $2 million goal, donate through the RunSignup page by the end of December.