NICHOLS, SC (WBTW) – The Town of Nichols is on the road to recovery, last month News13 showed you the visual check list the Nichols Mayor, Lawson Battle keeps on his office wall.
New13s Kiahnna Patterson spoke with the Town Manager about what new items they have checked off the list and how you can help families recover this holiday season.
The Town on Nichols is recovering after Hurricane Matthew, thanks to volunteers and government officials helping with everything from wall tear outs to FEMA assistance. Town officials have two goals, to welcome residents back to the town and provide resources to help them rebuild.
Sandee Rogers, Nichols Town Manager explains, “Our families are strong and they love this community. They want to come back home and we’re going to do everything we can to make it happen.”
About 175 families are still displaced from their homes. Some are as far away as Darlington or North Myrtle Beach.
Nichols residents say they have faith the Town will recover, within the past few weeks three more businesses in the town have reopened totaling 6 businesses of the 22 before the storm. One of those businesses is Dollar General which now gives residents a place to shop.
Also, a partnership between the Marion County Healthcare Foundation and the St. Bernard Project received a grant for 30 dehumidifiers to help dry out homes.
Nichols administrators want you to help in any way you can.
Rogers said, “Remember our families. They are beautiful and wonderful families that need help.”
“We need people to not to forget our families. They that just want to come home,” Rogers adds.
The Town Hall distribution center is accepting new blankets and coats.
The primary way you can also donate to the ‘Town on Nichols disaster Relief Fund’ for citizens set up with Anderson Bank in Mullins, S.C.
With the holidays coming up many families, organizations and churches have adopted a family or senior citizen in the Town for the holidays.
“We have to make sure that these families and kids have Christmas. Not only the children, we are mainly an elderly community. They need to have as much tender love and care as the children. Especially at the Holiday Season when they are alone and no one is around,” explained Rogers.
Several Pee Dee churches plan to help families or seniors of the town this weekend.
For the past 36 years—the Greater Highway Church of Christ of Latta hosts a Christmas Community Concert to help families in need. This year they will donate all of the proceeds to families in Nichols.
Five different church choirs will host a free concert. They will accept donations and all of the proceeds will benefit families in Nichols. Many members of the congregations have family or coworkers that lost everything after the storm– They hope to give 5- 10 families 500 dollars to help them rebuild.
Pastor Ricky Gilchrist, Partners with Christmas Community Concert for the past 16 years, “We certainly want to be able to help those that are right here at home that have experienced such devastation.”
The Christmas Community Concert event is 7pm Saturday at the Door of Hope Church in Marion. Admission is free, donations will be accepted. All of the proceeds will go to families or seniors in the Town on Nichols.
