Some people are called step *into* crisis situations – to help, to comfort, when it’s easier to turn away. And we are lucky to have so many working for us.

Because we know they will do the right thing. Every day. Even the hardest day.

Sharon Singletary* and her staff are fluent in crisis management. They run our four Crisis & Assessment Centers, including the one in Asheville.

So Friday night – counting the hours since our Asheville center lost contact – Sharon stayed awake in her Winston-Salem home thinking about the kids she couldn’t reach. By morning, she knew what she had to do.

She and her husband, Brian, were going west: “I said, ‘We’ve got a Suburban. We’ll go pick them up. We’ve got to go get those kids.’ ”

The trip took over four hours, but they made it to Asheville. They found the kids outside grilling their lunch and, instead of the two staff they were expecting, they found five who had shown up to keep the kids busy, comforted, and safe. Drinking water was low; power was out – and everybody was relieved to see Sharon and Brian walk up.

“We told the kids to get their clothes. Let’s roll,” Sharon says. “They gathered up their little backpacks and they loaded up in the car, and then we hit the road. We didn’t make any wrong turns. It’s amazing. The Lord, he helped us.”

They rolled down I-26 just as the state issued a do-not-enter alert for drivers headed to Western North Carolina.

It’s gratifying to see our staff work together to get kids to safety – but difficult knowing that many of these children are from areas devastated by the storm.

In the Franklin home, kids are learning their hometowns were demolished – the roads they grew up on have been washed away. Even teens in our Raleigh and New Bern transitional living homes are waiting for word from family back in Western North Carolina.

They all will need our support and prayers. “If there was ever a time to pray, it’s now,” Sharon says. “It is now.”

*Sharon is our Director of Assessment Center Services

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