Working in collaboration with Housing Authority residents and the Women’s Wellbeing and Development Foundation, a group of Mars Hill University undergraduate social work students will spend a semester interviewing and filming public housing tenants before assembling their footage into a short film. The idea is to increase a sense of connection in a city where public housing communities are physically and socially isolated.
UNC Asheville and the YMI Cultural Center hosted the inaugural African-Americans in Western North Carolina conference on Thursday-Friday, Oct.23-24. The event, designed to discuss an overlooked historical narrative, included speeches by Asheville civil rights leaders and scholars from UNCA and other regional universities.
UNC Asheville and the YMI Cultural Center will host the inaugural African-Americans in Western North Carolina conference Oct.23-24. Organizers say the free event invites the public to hear scholars from universities throughout the region discuss a historical narrative that has been largely overlooked.
The Center for Diversity Education at UNC Asheville hosted the day-long conference “Everybody’s Environment” on Friday, Oct. 10. The event invited staff from local environmental and conversation groups, community organizers and the public to discuss strategies for creating a more inclusive environmental movement, with more diverse staff at environmental organizations and stronger ties to the communities they serve.
Blue Ridge Pride hosted the annual Pride Festival on Saturday, Oct. 4, in Pack Square. The event was part of four days of Pride activities that included the Miss Blue Ridge Pride Pageant and a performance by comedian Jennie McNulty.
Through the organization’s Water Quality Internship Program, six interns are learning how to test water quality in local streams. But that’s only the beginning, as the interns will also work as educators and advocates, raising awareness of environmental concerns in the public housing developments near the streams.
The Burton Street Community Peace Garden is filled with art installations, metal structures, canopies, reading nooks and tidy rows of vegetables. But this garden is known for growing something more than food — neighbors say this garden works to grow connections in a community with a history of being intersected.
In order to help strengthen the networks between growers and food assistance and resource centers, Xpress is working to map food pantries, share markets, community gardens that offer free produce, welcome tables and any other community resources that increase access to healthy foods.
The WNC area is rich with community gardens of all sorts — from CSAs to donation gardens that grow for area food banks to education gardens for public schools. Xpress is working to compile a database of community gardens to help interested neighbors find and support these community efforts.
From the Get It! Guide: What are we talking about when we talk about sustainability in Asheville? Cleaner air environmental preservation, more city parks, better education, access to good food and quality housing? But what if all these things are not shared equally with all residents of the city?
From the Get It! Guide: Kudzai Mabunda realized a demand for assisted living that allowed the elderly or disabled to remain in a home environment. Utilizing a loan from Mountain BizWorks, she was able to create two new facilities.
The USDA has identified several areas in WNC, and Asheville, as places without access to healthy, affordable food. But three different mobile food markets are aiming to launch this year — reducing the distance between healthy foods and communities in need.
YMCA of Western North Carolina is holding their annual Healthy Kids Day today, April 12, in Pack Square until 3 p.m. The YMCA designed the annual event to “inspire more kids to keep their minds and bodies active.” This year’s event also marks the launch of the organization’s new mobile food kitchen and pantry.
From the Get It! Guide: The idea of local economy has become a growing global movement to build a saner and more sustainable world. Increasingly, people are waking up to the simple truth that “local” matters — the best way to help out their economy is by keeping it as local as possible.
Feeding America estimates that 100,000 people in Western North Carolina are experiencing food insecurity. Winter heating bills, new restrictions to food stamp eligibility and rising medical costs may be increasing situational poverty. But if a lack of access to food is a growing problem, some across the region are working on a growing solution. Read more in part two of our series looking at how community gardens are fighting hunger — from the ground up.
Tupelo Honey Cafe is partnering with the Shiloh neighborhood to build an amphitheater and outdoor kitchen for the South Asheville community.
Local seniors learn skills and discover friendships in the garden.
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an annual peace march departed from St. James African Methodist Episocopal church around noon. The procession met others honoring King at a rally in City-County Plaza, complete with music and speeches from community leaders.
Good things are happening at Community High. In the last academic year, the school met state-mandated progress goals for end-of-course test scores. And beginning this semester, the school has college-level Advanced Placement classes, something only a handful of alternative high schools in North Carolina offer.
Three years ago, Robert White and his wife, Lucia Daugherty, sized up an abandoned baseball field at Pisgah View Apartments, the West Asheville public-housing complex they call home, and envisioned a beautiful communal green space. From that prodigious act of the imagination sprang the Pisgah View Community Peace Garden, which today teems with life.
