Come Hear Walter Parks Holler

Cedar Grove is in trouble and I need your help.

Surveying the damage after a hurricane is like waking up after surgery. You’re bleary-eyed and half crazed, but you’ve got to see what’s forever gone.

Getting over to Cedar Grove Church took a few days. Cedar Grove is a restoration project I’ve been working on for a decade.

I found that the damage was relatively minor—

• A few trees down.

• A few holes poked in the roof.

• One window ripped out.

• A small section of siding missing.

I Need Your Help To Fix It

Here are 3 ways you can help me, if you are able.

1. To send a donation, mail your check to Cedar Grove Church, c/o Janisse Ray, 895 Catherine T. Sanders Road, Reidsville, GA 30453. Any amount is welcome and I thank you.

2. Attend the benefit concert planned for Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024 at 2 pm. The legendary & phenomenal Walter Parks and his band Swamp Cabbage will be playing. Tickets can be found here, at Eventbrite. Tickets are $40 per person or 2 for $75. You can add lunch at my farm for another $35. 10 seats are available in front-row pews, with extras, for $100. There is also a space on Eventbrite for donations, sans tickets.

3. Come help clear away fallen trees. The trunks will be sawn by a portable sawmill into lumber that we will use on the restoration, but there will be plenty of limbs and branches to haul away. Or come volunteer at the concert.

Before photo by The Barn Hunter.

What the Place Is

Cedar Grove is a historic school and church in my very rural community. About 10 years ago I began restoring it. I set up a nonprofit, which has a board. I set up a bank account.

I have been raising money mostly through letter-writing campaigns. Thanks to a lot of generous people, the church got a roof for 12K. Then it got handmade windows, built by an 80-year-old carpenter. Then a new pulpit. Then all the repairs inside were finished.

Every one of those jobs has a story. The roof story was told in “A Roof for Cedar Grove,” a segment of Saving Grace, which aired on Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Where I Live

I live in Tattnall County, Georgia, and this church is located on Cedar Haw Road. That’s a historic road that connected the community of Cedar Grove with the community of Altamaha (pronounced Alt-uh-muh-haw). Thus, Cedar Haw.

Cedar Grove Church is located on Cedar Haw Road, about 5 miles from my home.

This is the area where the feds built a prison in the 1930s, taking land from local smallholders via eminent domain. That became Georgia State Prison—now closed—although Rogers State Prison still operates as a prison farm. All around Cedar Grove Church is prison land.

Hurricane Damage

An old-growth pine is down in front of the church.

Another pine is down behind the church.

A third pine is down beside the church.

This one fell toward the sanctuary, punching three small holes in the tin roof. It took out the middle window of the south wall—the panes of glass are gone, the window frame is broken, the sill is gone, and some of the siding inside and out will have to be replaced.

Two Months Ago

The sad part is that before Hurricane Helene, we basically had the bones of the structure completely restored—roof, inside, finally outside.

In late summer 2024 I had asked Mr. Javier Ramos if he could finish Cedar Grove’s exterior. That was the next important part to restore. Most of what was undone was the soffits, the area where the siding meets the roof. The boxing had rotted over the years, and these spaces needed to be sealed. In the gable ends the soffit was almost 40 feet off the ground. In a few places siding was missing as well.

I asked Mr. Ramos what he would charge to completely finish the outside of the church. He has done a lot of the work on it in later years. I like him. His work is crisp and sturdy, he’s honest and fair, and we have become friends.

Mr. Ramos studies what needs to be done and maps out a strategy before he purchases even a nail. Sometimes I think he takes too long at this angle-gazing. But who am I to say? I don’t have his skills, his expertise, his experience. I couldn’t do what he does.

I thought we’d need to rent scaffolding but Mr. Ramos had in mind to buy something that stretches between two extension ladders—he always liked to get a new tool out of a job. He was adamant that I not spend money to rent scaffolding.

Anyway, he came up with a price and we thought it was fair and he got to work. In a few weeks he was done.

Let me show you a few photos from Mr. Ramos’s work.

I am positive that no department of labor would approve this rigging. But I could not convince Mr. Ramos to do it any other way.

He is a very good friend.

After—it was looking so good.

Cedar Grove’s bank account is empty, and now I have more repairs that need to be done quickly. I appreciate any and all contributions to the restoration.

Please Come to the Concert

Walter Parks is coming to give a concert at Cedar Grove. He is a phenomenal musician. He toured the world as sideman for Richie Havens. I first heard about him in a long NYT article—he had used the historic hollers from Okefenokee Swamp to compose amazing songs.

Walter’s a stunning guitarist and showman. His work transports me to a mystical realm.

He’s especially interested in the low country because he was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. This is home. He now lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

The concert is Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024 at 2 pm. When you sign up I’ll make sure you have good directions, because this place will not be on your GPS.

Truly it’s a concert not to miss. The guy is mind-blowing. Plus he’ll have his band Swamp Cabbage with him. OMG. Get your tickets now.

Google him and listen to some of his songs.

It’s a grainy photo but here we are, the swamp hollerer and I.

Looking Ahead

Again, let me invite you to help me repair Cedar Grove. The structure is 130 years old, constructed of cypress and heart pine. I figured that it lasted 130 years, and maybe if we put a new roof on it and shored up its siding, it could last another 130 more. We plan for it to be a community resource, available for weddings and events.

However, it has no electricity and no bathroom.

For the concert we will have portable toilets and non-electric light.

Imagine Walter Parks singing his haunting swamp-holler songs on a December afternoon in a wild pineywoods church, no electricity, no bathroom, just people gathered together to listen to the kind of music that knits your soul back together.

I hope you decide to be here for it.