The initial help of providing food was expected to conclude by Oct. 22 as the last feeding unit closed. The second stage of providing mud-out relief to homeowners is in process, and plans are under way to begin the third step of relief, rebuilding houses.

N.C. Baptist Men, the organization coordinating efforts among Baptist churches, wants churches and Sunday School classes to partner with families of flood victims whose houses can be rebuilt.

The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) will pay up to $10,000 per house for building materials. The partner church or class will then, for example, provide labor to help rebuild, said Richard Brunson, director of N.C. Baptist Men.

Some of the families to be helped are church members, some aren't. Some are Christians, and some aren't.

"We want it to be an outreach, a ministry," Brunson said.

For each family that gets a partner from a N.C. Baptist church, the Baptist State Convention (BSC) will provide up to a $1,000 grant to help in the rebuilding. N.C. Baptist Men are working with Gov. James B. Hunt on the possibility of the state of North Carolina offering a matching grant, Brunson said.

"Our goal is to have at least 1,000 Baptist churches partner with a family," Brunson said.

For more information or to partner, call the N.C. Baptist Men's office at (919) 467-5100.

The partnerships are part of a N.C. Baptist Men's program called CARE (Churches Assisting Recovery Efforts). Another element of this program is matching N.C. Baptist churches with those whose facilities were damaged by flood.

"There's been a lot of interest in churches partnering with churches," Brunson said.

As the planning for the rebuilding effort intensifies, the cleaning out process is still active. As of Oct. 21, crews coordinated by N.C. Baptist Men had stripped out about 1,000 houses. Stripping out involves the removal of carpet, sheet rock and flooring of flooded houses.

Most crew members arrive on Thursday night, work all day Friday and Saturday and leave Saturday night. Meals are provided by the local church, which is reimbursed by the BSC. The volunteers sleep in churches.

Five hundred volunteers doing this work, called "mud-out," were expected to arrive Oct. 21, Brunson said.

Hundreds of other houses need to be stripped out, he said. Once the water-logged materials are removed, the house needs to sit several weeks to dry out. The first rebuilding efforts are expected to begin in a few weeks.

The last two N.C. Baptist feeding units were stationed at Goldsboro's Madison Avenue Baptist Church and in Williamston's city parking lot.

Hurricane Floyd pounded Eastern North Carolina with as much as 20 inches of rain just after Hurricane Dennis had raised the levels of streams and rivers. The combination caused rivers to reach flood heights not seen this century. Some described it as a flood that is seen only once every 500 years. The flooding affected homes, churches, businesses and farms. An estimated 20,000 homes were flooded because of Hurricane Floyd.