More than two years after Hurricane Helene tore through the Upstate, Spartanburg County officials are putting out an urgent call: they need volunteer drivers to keep a crew of Amish builders moving between a local church and the homes they're repairing. Mennonite Disaster Service volunteers have framed walls and hung drywall on a home, but under their faith's rules, the Amish builders can't get behind the wheel to reach the job sites.
Spartanburg County officials are seeking drivers to transport Amish volunteers who are repairing homes damaged by Hurricane Helene throughout the county, according to FOX Carolina. The builders are set to begin work on October 26 and are scheduled to work through April 1, 2027, with a break planned for the Christmas holiday, the station reports. The operation is a joint volunteer initiative led by Disaster Aid Ohio and Mennonite Disaster Service, which organizes skilled Amish and Mennonite construction crews for disaster response across the country.
Why the Builders Need a Ride
Old Order Amish religious guidelines strictly forbid personal ownership and operation of motor vehicles, a tradition rooted in maintaining community identity and separation from the broader world, according to DutchCrafters. That's led to organized networks of non-Amish drivers, often called Amish taxis, who handle long-distance travel and job-site commuting whenever Amish communities need to move beyond walking or horse-and-buggy distance. In Spartanburg, that role is being filled by local volunteers rather than a paid service.
The daily commitment itself is brief. Per the station's report, volunteer drivers are needed for 7 a.m. drop-off assignments, either driving builders in passenger vans from the church to job sites or delivering a trailer to a site and then returning. Drivers who arrive before 7 a.m. get a free breakfast, and trailers and builders need to be picked up and brought back to the church by 4:30 p.m., with a free dinner sometimes offered to drivers at the end of the day.
Operational Logistics Behind the Scenes
Operational Logistics Behind the Scenes
This isn't the first time Mennonite Disaster Service crews have worked in the county. During an earlier winter deployment in early 2026, the group's volunteers rebuilt three fully destroyed homes in Spartanburg County, working through funding and coordination with the Spartanburg Long Term Recovery Group and local charitable organizations, according to the Salvation Army. Volunteers drove in from around the country for that project.
The Scale of Unmet Need in Spartanburg County
Hurricane Helene swept across Upstate South Carolina in September 2024, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was the deadliest tropical system to hit South Carolina since Hurricane Hugo in 1989, causing 50 deaths statewide and knocking out power to more than 1.3 million customers, per the South Carolina Emergency Management Division.
Local recovery assessments by the Spartanburg Long Term Recovery Group identified more than 400 homes in the county with remaining unmet repair and debris removal needs following the storm, particularly affecting elderly and low-income residents, the Spartanburg County Foundation reported. Public agency emergency response, debris clearing and infrastructure repair costs across South Carolina exceeded $370 million following Helene, Inside Climate News reported, a figure that illustrates how much of the private housing recovery burden has fallen to nonprofits and volunteer groups rather than government coffers.
Following a federal major disaster declaration for Spartanburg County, FEMA opened Individual Assistance grants and operated a dedicated local Disaster Recovery Center to help uninsured homeowners with emergency repair funding, according to the South Carolina Emergency Management Division. More broadly, South Carolina resilience officials have launched dedicated regional disaster recovery offices across the Upstate aimed at assisting an estimated 900 households with severe housing damage, per the South Carolina Office of Resilience.
How to Sign Up
For residents weighing whether they can spare a morning or an afternoon, the ask is straightforward: interested drivers can volunteer through an online form, FOX Carolina reports. With builders set to work six days a week into the spring, county officials are hoping enough local drivers step up to keep the vans — and the rebuilding — moving.
