“Finding my birth parents seemed as insurmountable as knowing where humanity came from,” says author Valerie Naiman. After multiple DNA tests, she continues, “I turned to psychics and detectives. Wading through a muck of secrets, lies and falsified documents, I finally found my mother when she was 94 years old.”
“We’re helping people as much as we’re helping cats, though it isn’t what we first set out to achieve,” says Nancy Gavin, cofounder of Laps and Naps, a local nonprofit serving senior cats.
“Violence spins in vicious cycles, and if you want to fully understand why these events in Morganton occurred, then you have to examine root causes that predate 1927,” says author and historian Kevin W. Young.
Researchers found mothers reported increased anxiety about the uncertainty of travel, distant pregnancy care providers not being easily accessible and insufficient coordination among care providers.
Bulk sections, where customers bring their own containers, can cut substantial plastic waste from the shopping experience. Yet concerns over coronavirus transmission have led some co-ops to change how they offer bulk products or even stop them altogether.
Writer Kiesa Kay provides an update on how people in Yancey County are managing to stay connected and well during the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A new play for children, It’s Just a Pill, premiered at A-B Tech’s Ferguson Auditorium on March 8. The 55-minute musical confronts the opioid epidemic from the perspective of a 10-year-old girl. The production will now travel around North Carolina to reach over 4,000 young people.
By reaching out to African-American residents in rural parts of WNC through surveys, conversations and community meetings, a new three-year, $350,000 fellowship aims to raise awareness and reduce racism in the region’s nonurban health care delivery system.
Harm-reduction efforts and addiction treatment are two of the main strategies public health agencies are using to address the crisis. Buncombe County, Haywood County and the Mountain Area Health Education Center are deploying over $660,000 in federal funds as part of that effort.
Joel Edelson only meant to sell books to pay for college. Instead, going door to door, he became the first Jew many of the folks in a rural area he traveled had ever had met in their lives. “I became an ambassador for Judaism,” says Edelson, president of the Mountain Synagogue in Franklin, recalling his […]
As a sacred fire burns, two holy leaders from Canada will share insights gleaned from their lives as resilient survivors and indigenous leaders at the Voices of Wisdom gathering near Weaverville Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 17-18.
The Hope Chest for Women connects those struggling with breast and gynecological cancer to community resources. The nonprofit provides funds for vitamins, medications, utility payments, specialized medical supplies, co-pays and other practical expenses for those living or receiving treatment in 22 counties in Western North Carolina.
The Project CARA program housed at MAHEC Ob/Gyn Specialists came into being to decrease barriers and the stigma that prevents pregnant women with substance-use disorders from getting quality obstetrical care as well as access to substance-use treatment. Last year, Project CARA supported 230 women with substance-use disorders and their families from 16 WNC counties.
To help prison inmates along the path of personal change, a local woman-owned business supplies meditation mats to create a space for contemplation and rest inside the prison walls. Carolina Morning Designs, located in the Toe River Valley south of Burnsville, has modified its products to meet correctional facility requirements.
The nonprofit Under One Sky Village Foundation provides camp and learning experiences to children in foster care and those who have been adopted. Constant disruption and dislocation are experiences nearly all of Under One Sky’s participants share, its founder says.
September is Deaf Awareness Month, with a range of activities designed to raise awareness of deaf culture and offer enhanced access to learning and fun.
In 2009, Alyce Knaflich began volunteering to help women, veterans and homeless people. In 2014, she created the Aura Foundation, a nonprofit that serves homeless women veterans in Buncombe, Haywood and Henderson counties. Two years later, the group bought a building on Meadowbrook Terrace in Hendersonville to house the dream: a place women veterans can call home while they find the resources needed to regain independence.
Since its inception in 2016, the local ZERO Prostate Cancer Run/Walk has raised over $100,000 for research, advocacy and assistance to lower-income cancer patients.
Since Caiyalynn Burrell’s tragic death from an overdose in 2014, agencies from across the region and the state have come together to find new ways to help children and teens in crisis receive the help they need. The Caiyalynn Burrell Child Crisis Center is now open at 277 Biltmore Ave. in Asheville to respond to psychiatric crises in a supportive, holistic and peaceful environment that also helps patients connect to community resources throughout their treatment and recovery.
