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.