After the Hurricane

It has been a little more than a month since Hurricane Helene hit the southeast region, and efforts to rebuild are well underway. In our own state of Tennessee, electricity and water have been restored in all but the most damaged areas. With those acute needs addressed, most of the recovery effort will now unfold over years of hard work. Government agencies are working to rebuild bridges and roads that were damaged or erased by the storm, and community members are healing and rebuilding after catastrophic loss. These efforts will take time.

 

At ISC, we’ve been deeply grateful for the friends and colleagues across the national storytelling community who have reached out to support us and our neighbors. While Jonesborough is a small town, it holds an important place in many people’s hearts. After we cancelled the National Storytelling Festival, several storytellers who had been slated to perform transported carloads of supplies to support local relief. The Timpanogos Storytelling Festival in Utah and the Athens Storytelling Festival in Alabama generously donated proceeds from their events. And an online storytelling benefit organized by Better Said Than Done, Northeast Storytelling, and Six Feet Apart Productions brought together performers including Adam Booth, Kevin Kling, Lyn Ford, and Dovie Thomason to raise money for regional relief efforts. That concert is available to watch on YouTube, and the donation links all remain live.

 

During what would have been the weekend of the National Storytelling Festival, a group of performers came together in Jonesborough to stage a free benefit concert.

 

The idea came together very quickly in the days after the Festival was cancelled. “We wanted to give back to the community that’s given us so much, so we thought we’d grab a couple of other storytellers to go down and do some work,” says Paula Lepp, who organized the event. (Her husband Bil is frequently featured at the National Storytelling Festival; the couple is based in West Virginia.) “Originally, we were thinking feet in boots, hands in gloves, go down, and do work.” But when a community member suggested that they stage a benefit concert, that seemed like an even better idea.

 

Since the event was organized in just a few short days, the Lepps called on friends who they knew were within a short driving distance and available to mobilize. A lineup quickly came together: Andy Offutt Irwin, Paul Strickland, and Sheila Arnold would be joined by Donald Davis, who was already on site for his week-long residency with Storytelling Live.

 

The Jonesborough Novelty Band, a long-time fixture at the National Storytelling Festival, played the pre-show, and local storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith emceed. The two-hour concert concluded with a performance of “Yankee Come Home” by Ed Stivender, who wrote the song years ago as a love letter to Jonesborough. The song, which traditionally concludes the National Storytelling Festival, was a poignant note on which to end the benefit.

 

“I know that there are hundreds of other storytellers across the country who would have been equally willing to jump in,” says Paula Lepp. “But part of it was we needed to get there quickly, and find people who could mobilize safely.” Since it was critical to preserve local resources, the concert was only advertised through local channels.

 

Despite the last-minute nature of the benefit, the logistics came together seamlessly, with multiple parties collaborating to iron out the details. The benefit was held at the Jackson Theatre, a new community space in downtown Jonesborough set to host its grand opening in November. (The National Storytelling Festival had planned several events to take place in the theater, which seats about 300 people.) The venue was filled to capacity, but with no overflow. “When it comes together like that, you feel like that’s what was supposed to happen,” Paula says.

 

The benefit raised more than $25,000 for the United Way of East TN Highlands in person and via livestream. The concert is available to watch on YouTube, and donation links remain active for anyone who still wants to give.

 

While it’s impossible to provide a comprehensive account of the outpouring of support from our community, we at ISC have been struck by how quickly people have mobilized in the wake of the disaster. This response was possible in part from the experience we all had during the pandemic, which pressed us to think flexibly and develop channels for sharing stories online. But more than anything, the response has been possible because of the incredible community we have cultivated together over the years.

 

“It’s really amazing when you see how the storytelling community all across the United States and even in other countries sort of came together to help the Jonesborough area,” Paula Lepp points out. “We recognize the power of story, but it’s also more than that; it’s how story builds community. That community runs deeper and wider than a lot of us even realized.”