North Carolina Bridges – Feb. 1-6, 2026

The four of us who arrived to serve for a month here building bridges arrived just before a big snow was predicted.  We all come from Ohio, so we should be used to snow!  We made the move to our accommodations on Friday and spent most of Saturday and Sunday watching it snow, and working at getting set up and ready for our first short term volunteers.  We are staying in the parsonage of the Episcopal Church in Bat Cave, as well as a roomy house up the hill.  Church was cancelled on Sunday due to the snow but by afternoon the three men decided that the roads were cleared enough that they could take a drive and look at the area.

Because of the weather, our group from PA delayed their arrival until Monday evening.  We welcomed three women and seven men; two of the women being our cooks for the week, and they did a wonderful job and fed us well!

On Tuesday the volunteers divided into three crews to work on three different bridges, one of which is 35 minutes away.  The Mauldin bridge was finished but just needed some finishing touches to the driveway and edges to make access easier, so that was finished on Tuesday.  At the Briar Hollow bridge, they formed the concrete and began the process of putting planks on the I-beams.  Throughout the rest of the week the crews concreted the end walls, finished the decking and railing, finished the stone and completed that bridge.  At the Cordova bridge, footer excavation, rebar and form work was begun and continued through Thursday, when the volunteers also drove in the pilings.  On Friday the volunteers started setting up the construction for the new Blue Rock bridge that will be built.

On Friday evening, the team of long and short term volunteers from the Asheville site joined us at Bat Cave for our evening meal, so we enjoyed a good time of fellowship together as those volunteers were a part of the same group as the volunteers here on the bridge project.

Despite working in the ice and snow, a lot was accomplished and we had a great week beginning the bridge project here at Bat Cave.

From the long term team:  Mike, Linda, Keith and Mark