High Country Caregivers: Kinship Care with a “Whatever it Takes” Resolve STORY BY SAM GARRETT
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ince 2019, Jacob Willis has served as the executive director for High Country Caregivers (HCC). The organization is dedicated to supporting grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. Willis came to HCC with over two decades of nonprofit leadership experience. For the most part, over the last five years, his energy has been focused on managing social workers, event management, navigating grandparent’s rights with the courts, working with the organization’s board of directors, and connecting grandparents with resources and opportunities to love their grandkids. On September 27, the vision and mission remained, and the practical application of the organization’s activity transformed.
September 28, 2024 through October 3, 2024 Willis and HCC board members awoke to the realization that the “weather” in the High Country on September 27 was much more than a storm. The word spread late that day with updates
continuing the following day detailing the catastrophic nature of the disaster. The group assembled its list and started reaching out to clients. With 368 caregivers supporting 437 children in Ashe, Avery, Wilkes, Watauga, Yancey, and Mitchell counties, outreach was more complicated than making hundreds of phone calls or sending out a group email. “Internet was down, cell service was down; if someone had a home phone, those lines were down, and many roads had been destroyed, damaged, or closed,” said Willis. “After a couple of days of calling, we still had close to a hundred families we could not reach and had not heard from.” The staff at High Country Caregivers, along with members of the board and volunteers, persisted. The new focus was threefold and clear: Step 1 – Check on the immediate well-being of clients. Step 2 – Evaluate each family’s situation and identify needs. Step 3 – Do whatever it takes to meet families’ needs or connect them with people and organizations that can. The list of 400-plus families to contact quickly shrank to around a dozen and the names that remained lived in areas with no road access, power, or cell service. HCC representatives remained optimistic that they would be able to reach the few families they could not contact and shifted resources toward evaluating and meeting the needs of their clients.
October 3, 2024 through around Thanksgiving Very quickly HCC transformed into a food pantry, water drop-off and delivery station, fuel depot, new and used clothing resource, and makeshift store that offered everything in stock for free. Staff and volunteers continued to call clients and drive to the homes of families they could not reach. “The entire HCC community has stepped up – the staff,
Coach Jerry Moore, board member for High Country Caregivers, out helping with wellness checks after the storm. Photo submitted. 46
HIGH COUNTRY MAGAZINE
December 2024