King's Karpenters in McClellanville,SC

When returning home from Charlotte after Hurricane Hugo, we discovered that some of the men from North Myrtle Beach First Baptist Church had gone down to McClellanville which had been totally destroyed by Hugo. They took water, chainsaws, and any thing else that that the folks down there may need to keep going.

After getting back home I joined together with other men and went back to help repair damage in the town. After a couple days we saw that there was a small community north of the town that no one was helping so we got as many men together as we could find and went back there to help them. We met Robert and Mary Lennen who had lost everything that they had in their home. They had an old warehouse that was given to them to be used as headquarters for our work teams. They planned on living in the warehouse until everyone had been placed back in their homes then we could help them. Robert and Mary's house was one of the last two homes that we help build.

After a couple days we saw that we could not do all that needed to be done alone so we approached several other churches and we had three others that said that they would go down one day each week. We started repairing the houses that we could complete in the least amount of time and by doing this, let the people know that we would be on a job five days a week untill it was finished and found that they started helping us some. Not too long after we started the other churches kind of dropped off but before they did we had repaired over twenty homes and had built one new one. The men at First Baptist keep on going as much as we could At this time we decided to name our group the Kings Karpenters.

After working in McClellanville for two years we were not needed there any more. We left McClellnaville with memories that will be with us as long as we live. I hope that someday people will read this and say a prayer for those folks, that God will continue to bless them and their children. We returned to North Myrtle and started doing work around North Myrtle and it was not long the need was so great in and around the county we were repairing homes all over Horry county.

I left the group in 2000 and moved back to Charlotte but I will always be a Kings Karpenter. When we were formed as a team our first leader was Ben Martin who led us well for a few years but due to bad health had to turn it over to Leary Baker who let us for couple years untill he fell off his golf cart and had to give it up, but he still worked with us until the end. Bill Taylor took over and led the group until now and they are still doing what he and others can for the needy people in and around North Myrtle. Bill is one of the most faithful men that I have ever known. Even through much sickness and hospital stays Bill just keeps on working every Thursday and sometimes other days of the week. It has been going on over twenty years; may God continue to bless the folks involved in this project.  Listen to me tell this story.