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SPINDALE—What do Hurricane Helene victims and Ukrainian refugees have in common? An innovative portable stove and heat source, along with welding students and instructors from Spindale, North Carolina, and Trelleborg, Sweden, of course.

Let’s start from the beginning.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which steamrolled western North Carolina on the last Friday of September, Isothermal Community College remained closed until Monday, Oct. 7. During that time, a good deal of classroom time was lost, and instructors were urged to come up with ways to make it up.

“I was thinking we could do some sort of a welding project that would help the community as it recovered,” said Nathan Fisher, ICC’s lead welding instructor.

Fisher reached out to two colleagues he met a few years ago when Isothermal was involved in an international learning collaborative with Trelleborg.

The Swedish company with the North American headquarters of its Engineered Coated Materials division in Rutherfordton has long worked with Isothermal. Recently, a project took some ICC students and instructors to Trelleborg, Sweden, where they worked alongside students and instructors at the Teknicollege, the country’s largest trade school.

“I spoke with my friends there, Magnus Osterburg and Oliver Vallee,” said Fisher. “They had a great idea for us to build these portable stoves, very similar to ones they had built to give to refugees from Ukraine who have been coming into Sweden since the beginning of the war with Russia. It was perfect because we knew there were so many people, especially in Yancey County, who needed to boil water and to have something that could provide heat and a cooking surface.”

Osterburg and Vallee sent Fisher the plans for the stoves and the Isothermal students got to work.

The design is a rectangular box on legs with a smokestack on one end and a damper and door on the other. Once a fire is lit inside, the steel top can be used as a stove for cooking or boiling water, the interior can be used as a small oven, and that device can throw off enough heat to warm up a makeshift shelter.

“Our students had to convert the measurements from the Swedish plans and make some modifications due to the availability of materials until they got it right,” said Fisher.

Fisher and the other ICC welding instructors, Joy Thomson and Austin Price, were able to get some supply donations from several companies, notably Anderson Welding. They also were able to get some contacts in Burnsville who could direct the stoves to individuals in the greatest need.

Price took the first shipment of 15 stoves to Yancey County a few weeks ago. The students are working to complete another 40.

“It was shocking to see how much damage there still was there,” said Price. “There are a lot of people living in very bad conditions.”

Fisher said the Isothermal students have learned a great deal from the project and have had fun doing it.

“Partnerships are important for any organization,” said Mike Gavin, Isothermal’s director of Marketing and Community Relations. “This whole project demonstrates the value of those connections. It seems so unlikely that a product dreamed up in Sweden to aid war refugees would end up helping our folks in western North Carolina. But that kind of collaboration makes it possible and that is one of the strengths of Isothermal in particular and North Carolina Community Colleges in general.”

To find out more about Isothermal’s welding program, contact Fisher at nfisher@isothermal.edu or 828-395-1515.