$10,000 Raised for HSVFD

Today, we are proud to share that nearly $10,000 raised through the sale of our community book, Through Our Eyes, has been directed to support the Hot Springs Volunteer Fire Department. This marks the first initiative funded through proceeds from the book, and it reflects the heart of why the project exists: to give back to the people who carried our town through its hardest hours.

Rebuild Hot Springs: A Community’s Photographic Memory One Year After Hurricane Helene

Community-Published Book was Launched on First Anniversary of the Storm

Hot Springs, NC – On the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene, the community of Hot Springs released a book unlike any other: Through Our Eyes: A Community’s Photographic Memory of Hurricane Helene. More than a traditional photo book, it is the collective story of a town battered by floodwaters, yet bound together by resilience, memory, and hope.

The book was created through an open call for photographs, stories, and oral histories from residents who lived through the storm and its aftermath. Hundreds of submissions poured in—from first responders and neighbors who helped pull families from danger-r, to snapshots of the rebuilding process that continues today. The result is a vivid, community-published record: A book built by Hot Springs, for Hot Springs, and one that resonates far beyond the mountains, offering a rare, ground-level view of how a community isolated by disaster turned inward- and to each other- to survive. 

Featuring over 200 curated images contributed by more than 45 community members, along with oral histories from those who helped lead the response in the days after the storm, the full-color book will be available at launch in both hardcover and paperback editions.

“This project is about more than remembering a storm,” said local Hot Springs community organizer Kevin Reese. “It’s about honoring the people who carried each other through it, and ensuring that the story is preserved for generations to come.”