Many local nonprofits are facing challenges as money and volunteer hours pour into groups with a more direct role in storm recovery efforts. These groups are trying to address the issue in creative ways, including reaching out to donors and volunteers outside WNC for help.
“With the storm’s impact, we anticipate a significant rise in food insecurity as more families and individuals turn to us and other community resources in the coming months,” says Micah Chrisman, director of marketing and communications of MANNA FoodBank.
The compilation album — a fundraiser to support Beloved Asheville’s post-Helene relief work — features songs from 279 local, regional and international artists with connections to WNC.
A weekend of music and food combines with post-Helene river and lake cleanup efforts in Haywood County.
As small towns throughout Western North Carolina face an October without tourists, local nonprofits and community members are finding ways to help financially struggling businesses.
Despite the destruction of its East Asheville facility, Western North Carolina’s main hunger-relief hub is finding ways to serve the community. Also: updates from Equal Plates Project, WNC Food Systems Coalition, Food Connection and Asheville Independent Restaurants.
Fleeing violence in their home countries, evacuees find a welcoming safety net in Asheville.
Safe Haven will be an emergency shelter operating 24/7 and year-round with 36 beds for single women, women with children and up to two intact families.
The organization cited lingering economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, shifts in funding priorities and the need for facility repairs as reasons for the shortfall.
The showcase will feature more than a dozen local vendors in the industry, including photographers, florists, musicians and stationery printers.
The all-volunteer, antiracism organization grew from a single nine-week course back in 1993.
“We’ve been out of compliance for 14 years,” Housing Authority of the City of Asheville President and CEO Monique Pierre told a May 22 meeting of the HACA Board of Commissioners.
“It is interesting to me that anybody would think it’s OK to just walk up and grab a bear cub and not be concerned about where mama is,” says Appalachian Wildlife Refuge co-founder Savannah Trantham said. “If she had been close by, I think that you probably would have seen a different outcome.”
Project Aspire — a vast mixed-use, mixed-income venture slated for downtown Asheville — would have occupied 10.5 acres in downtown Asheville.
Forest Walters discusses the strong team of volunteers working at 12 Baskets Café.
“I’m talking about roll up your sleeves, get down, get dirty, love, and connection and compassion,” says White, describing the Asheville-based nonprofit Let’s Choose Love. “And so, it became like a call to action. I thought, regardless of who we are, if we could let love be our guide in every decision in every interaction, we’d be fine.”
James Cassara, a volunteer at the YMCA of Western North Carolina, discusses the local nonprofit’s many services.
Melissa Gerhardt, a volunteer with Arms Around ASD, talks about the personal and social benefits of volunteering one’s time at a local nonprofit.
Nancy Tabel, a volunteer at Haywood Street Congregation, discusses the church’s efforts to address hunger and homelessness in Western North Carolina.
“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.
Samantha Maynard is a volunteer at Black Mountain Home for Children, a nonprofit that serves children as young as infants and as old as college age.
