Rebuilding for her future
Julia Ann White told herself she wouldn't cry. Not when she had so much to celebrate.
But she got too choked up when it came time to give her thank-yous Sunday, and her granddaughter had to step in for her.
A year ago, White came home from visiting her daughter out of town to find that lightning had struck her house, leaving it burned almost entirely to the ground. The home she had lived in since the late 1950s was gone. Her insurance company had dropped her about six months before. She had raised her six children there, she had held family get-togethers there; all her pictures and memories became charred and unidentifiable. What is it like to lose everything?
"You wouldn't want to know what it was like," White said. "It was like I'd been cut in half."
But her community wasn't going to have it. The residents of Hollywood rallied around White, raising money and donating supplies to her new home, which was built by Rural Missions in record time. The Johns Island-based nonprofit started construction in February. With the help of 150 volunteers who rotated through the site every few weeks, the house was finished in July.
"Normally it takes a year and a half to two years, and this one got built in six months," said Rural Mission executive director Linda Gadson. Her own house was gutted and rebuilt in the same amount of time last year when she found that her home had contracted a severe case of mold and mildew. "This community really came together."
Resources were pooled at both a local and national level. A lot of people in the Hollywood community provided their services for free, such as electrical and plumbing work. Hollywood Mayor Jacquelyn Heyward was more than willing to provide funds that paid for some of the flooring in the new house through the town's Neighbors Helping Neighbors program. And Rural Mission's construction workers consisted of family, friends and groups of volunteers from as far away as Massachusetts.
"Prayer, prayer, prayer can do anything," Gadson said.
White even pitched in. She painted, she sanded, she even nailed some drywall. She lived next door with her son while her new dwelling was rising before her eyes. White moved in about a month ago and threw a celebration for everyone who helped — in every way. Two local preachers blessed the house in front of a crowd of nearly 50 people who packed into White's kitchen Sunday afternoon .
"I appreciate everything they did from the bottom of my heart," White said. "I couldn't have done it without them … even the ones who couldn't help but had good thoughts."
