CHOCOWINITY — A Chocowinity woman who lost her home to the April 25 EF3 tornadoes is getting a new one, courtesy of a local nonprofit.

Louise Hill, of Bragaw Lane in Chocowinity, will soon have a new home thanks to the work and coordination of the N.C. Conference of United Methodist Church Disaster Recovery Ministries.

Construction of the home has gone through the first few phases, including the digging of the footer, the pouring of the foundation, the joisting of the floors and the framing of the house. Monday, members of Tabernacle Methodist Church in Virginia Beach, Va., who volunteer for the ministry, could be seen all around the site, continuing the construction of the house.

Disaster Response Superintendent Cliff Harvell, who heads up multiple UMC Disaster Recovery projects across eastern North Carolina, said Hill found herself underinsured after losing her house in the tornado. She was unable to hire a contractor and build a new home. Harvell said the ministry is providing the labor through their resources and volunteer work.

“We are utilizing the funds she received from insurance,” Harvell said. “In her case, she will have enough insurance to cover the cost of the materials. We are going to end up with thousands of dollars in this project, but we are not asking for anything to compensate for our labor.”

The volunteers from Tabernacle are first-time workers for the N.C. Conference of UMC. The group is made up of 16 middle school and high-school volunteers and six adult leaders, who have given their time for mission projects each summer for the past eight years.

Tommy Moore, a leader with the Tabernacle volunteers, said the group is here working the entire week and staying at Chocowinity United Methodist.

“We contacted the NC Disaster Response folks and they said come on down so we did,” Moore said. “We are staying at a local church and we are going to give them a week’s worth of work, hopefully. We’ve been basically going in where there’s been nails in the wrong place or no nails and so we’ve been going back fixing those. We’re the ones who’ve been doing the roof today, so hopefully in the next few days the roof will be on the house.”

Hill’s new home is the largest of four different models of homes the ministry builds for disaster victims. It is a 1,450 sq. ft. three-bedroom, two-bathroom house, which is energy efficient and can better withstand storms than most homes, Harvell said.

Harvell writes grants to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) for funding, but the majority of the ministry’s efforts come from church donations that end up in the N.C. Storm Fund. UMCOR is the worldwide fund for United Methodist Disaster Recovery, Harvell said.

Harvell said he coordinates all different aspects of the recovery process, including casework to assess the needs of the affected family and scheduling volunteers, like those with Tabernacle, to construct the home.

“We continue to coordinate and bring teams in,” Harvell said. “This is the busiest week we have had this year. We’ve got 140 volunteers on the ground this week across eastern North Carolina. It’s a major coordinating task.”

When the house is finished, there will be a House Blessing Service in which Hill, along with friends, family and members of the community, will be invited to gather to celebrate the new home being given to Hill.

If you would like to volunteer or donate, call the volunteer coordinator at 1-888-440-9167 or 919-610-8018, email at disasterresponse@nccumc.org or write to North Carolina Conference of United Methodist Church Disaster Response Committee at 120 Satchwell Rd, Grimesland, N.C. 27837.