Local business owners navigate relief resources

Asheville resident Jennie Townsend, who owns the food delivery service Kickback AVL, recalls jumping right in to help her community the day after Tropical Storm Helene struck Western North Carolina on Sept. 27.

“We didn’t know what to do, but we knew we needed to be there. So I started organizing what drivers I could get a hold of. I started reaching out to my chefs, figuring out who was doing free food, figuring out where the need was and then just started coordinating,” she explains.

Townsend, who normally employs about five dispatchers and 20-40 drivers and works with roughly 85 local businesses, said she spent the next few weeks working with local chefs to deliver food — distributing more 50,000 meals since relief efforts began. 

But while she has been focused on helping her community, she has struggled to keep herself and her business afloat. 

“[The storm] impacted us a lot, like everybody else. We’ve been without income as long as everybody else has,” Townsend says, holding back tears. “Honestly, I’ve been so covered up between coordinating food drops and then working with local chefs to continue delivering donated meals. So I’ve kind of had my hands in a whole lot of pots and not really looked out much for myself.”

Businesses impacted by Helene are facing an uphill battle. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 40% of small businesses do not reopen after a disaster, and roughly a quarter fail within one year.

As business owners begin to rebuild their livelihoods in the wake of Helene, financial relief efforts are beginning to take shape in Western North Carolina.

Patchwork of relief

While the Small Business Administration (SBA), FEMA and other federal and state agencies and nonprofits work to provide relief to business owners, local organizations are springing into action and taking different approaches to aid.

Some of those efforts include the WNC Strong: Helene Business Recovery Fund, created by Asheville-based nonprofit Mountain BizWorks and funded in part by the Golden LEAF Foundation. The fund may provide small businesses with loans up to $100,000 at a 1% interest rate with interest-only payments for the first 12 months.

On Oct. 8, Explore Asheville, the nonprofit arm of the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority, launched the Love Asheville From Afar campaign that encourages online purchasing and fundraising for affected businesses. Explore Asheville also established the Always Asheville Fund, which will provide grants to businesses in Buncombe County. And on Oct. 11, ArtsAVL announced its Emergency Relief Grant program, which plans to provide $500 stipends for artists and creative workers facing gig or project cancellations. 

Grants are important because while disaster relief loans may help some small businesses, many business owners hesitate to borrow money.

“Loans are not relief; they’re a debt,” says Townsend. “I don’t plan on applying for a small-business loan. I hope that we’re able to find our feet on our own because the thought of taking on a loan with such uncertain business ahead really just terrifies me.” 

“I started looking at one of the loan applications and one of the requirements for that is repayment ability. And I went down this whole rabbit hole of how can I prove repayment ability if my market is destroyed, and I don’t know where I’ll sell my things,” adds Caroline Wilson, a fiber artist whose gallery space in the River Arts District was destroyed.  

Her company, Line by Line Macrame, has been her sole source of income since last fall. She says she lost out on thousands of dollars in October alone. “It’s like, are we even going to rebuild the River Arts District? Is there even going to be that market for my work?” she says. 

Meanwhile, hundreds of local businesses and individuals are taking direct donations or using crowdsourcing platforms like GoFundMe to help provide income for employees or cover rebuilding efforts. Wilson says that a GoFundMe campaign to help artists who had gallery or studio space in the River Arts District has already provided relief as she explores other options. 

“It’s just been a roller coaster of emotions every day,” says Wilson.

The long haul

That overwhelmed feeling for business owners is widespread. Lucious Wilson, an investment partner and general manager at Wedge Brewery (no relation to Caroline), says that he and other small-business owners that he knows are still dealing with the trauma from the storm in conjunction with fears of losing their businesses. The Wedge’s Foundy Street taproom, which is in the River Arts District, was significantly damaged in the storm.

“Anyone who’s been through this sort of situation knows that it is hard to process. Just how many friends have been affected, how many people that I know in the business world have been affected, the loss of life. No one’s untouched,” says Wilson. “Personally, I have a hard time going there, being inside, knowing that your dreams are gone.”

Navigating the dizzying amount of insurance claims, loan and grant applications on top of coping with storm-induced trauma and anxiety is a lot, says Lucious Wilson. 

“I hope that people are focused on the mental health aspect of the situation and realize that people that are very wounded are now being tasked with saving their livelihoods in a very vulnerable space,” he says. “It’s like, you’ve lost everything, and now your reward is I have to fill out all these forms.” 

But as power and other vital resources are restored, Wilson says that the Wedge’s downtown taproom is open with limited hours, and a GoFundMe has been set up to help employees. 

Townsend adds that Kickback AVL is slowly beginning to resume normal operations. She notes that direct community support is the best form of relief. 

“Grants for really small businesses like us would be wonderful, but I think what would help my small business in particular the most is supporting the restaurants in a way that they can get back online because without our restaurants, we can’t operate either, and we’re all in this together,” she explains. 

For her part, Caroline Wilson is looking not just at the next few weeks, but what recovery and relief efforts might look like in the the months and year ahead.

“It’s going to be scary. Like, my sense of safety and my little security net that I was able to build for myself has been ripped out from under me,” she says. “It’s going to be long and it’s going to be hard. I hope people don’t forget about us.”