Over a year has passed since the community of Damascus, Virginia, was united through the challenges posed by Hurricane Helene. Now, Green Cove Collective is embarking on the journey of rebuilding after the storm’s destruction.
“Believing in your vision is crucial. When you feel like giving up, that’s precisely when you need to push forward with more determination,” expressed Scott Little, the owner of Green Cove Collective.
The Little family faced a challenging 18 months as their business was severely impacted by Helene. However, they are now on the brink of a fresh start for their beloved general store.
“2024 was a year of trials,” Little reflected. “Our family faced a severe cancer diagnosis with Allison, and then the hurricane swept away our business. It was a tough period for us.”
The store, which once welcomed over 45,000 visitors annually and thrived on personal connections with each guest, saw its bustling activity drop to zero almost overnight, leaving the Littles grappling with sudden changes.
“We did lose every customer that we had,” Little said. “90% of our customers, 95% of our customers were cyclists. So once the trail was closed, we had no more customer experience here and there was no really reason for us to keep the doors open.”
But Green Cove Collective is recovering one step at a time. For Scott Little, the help from others has been a blessing.
“We just put a new roof on, we had some volunteers from Memphis and from North Carolina come and do that for us on their own dime and their own time, which was amazing,” Little said.
Although the building continues to stand tall, the Little’s continue to fundraise. He said he hopes the next step can be fixing the electrical issues following the outlets being flooded and fixing the footbridge that allows customers to easily come into their shop from the trail.
Little said his goal is to have doors open and ready for the community by November 1st, even if the train remains closed.
“I think that’s one thing that the hurricane has taught us as a family and as individuals and the town of Damascus is how to bounce back and how to figure out a way to overcome adversity and pull together as a community and lean on our neighbors and our family and get to know one another in a new light and really try to take care of each other,” Little said. “It shows how powerful Appalachia is and how powerful the people here can be.”
A fundraiser for Green Cove Collective will be at the Old Mill restaurant in Dasmascus Virginia, on June 21st.