After 12 years helming the Asheville Grown Business Alliance, founder Franzi Charen is stepping aside. Her role will go to Sherree Lucas, who has served on the alliance’s steering committee for two years.
Tag: Asheville Grown Business Alliance
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Sales from Go Local cards raise nearly $17,000 for schools
The first quarter sales of the Go Local card represent a push by residents to support local businesses.
How Asheville showed its support of local businesses in 2019
Franzi Charen, founder of Asheville Grown Business Alliance, reflects on the ways Asheville showed its support of local businesses in 2019.
Beyond sustainability — restoring, repairing and creating resiliency in our community
“We need to have as much say as possible over the decisions that affect our lives, the money that informs our projects, the food that we eat and every system we touch,” writes Lee Warren, executive director of the Organic Growers School. “Relocalizing means taking back our power in every possible way.”
Strength in numbers: Go Local looks to expand
There is no fee for business owners interested in signing up, says Franzi Charen, founder of Asheville Grown Business Alliance, which produces the card each year. The only requirement is that locally owned, independent shops honor the card with hand-selected special offers.
ZaPow Gallery loses lease
ZaPow gallery owner Lauren Patton found out yesterday that her outreach efforts on behalf of ZaPow artists seem to have resulted in the termination of the gallery’s lease at 21 Battery Park Ave.
Making local tourism sustainable
What does a catchphrase like “sustainable tourism” mean here in Western North Carolina? How do you make it work at the ground level? Local businesses, organizations and public officials weigh in on what such a model might look like in the region.
Letter writer: Smith understands and supports local businesses
“Gordon wants to preserve, diversify and grow opportunities for our small, local, family- and minority-owned businesses.”
UnChain Asheville movement pushes back as Anthropologie opens for business
Local business owners have banded together under the mantra UnChain Asheville in an attempt to sway the public toward shopping with small businesses rather than chains.
One of a kind: Venture Local Fair celebrates Asheville’s unique character
There’s a crossroads between Buxton and Banks avenues, even though they don’t intersect. These blocklong, parallel, South Slope streets are lined with places to buy things, eat, drink and make merry: a chocolate factory, a doughnut shop, three breweries, two bars, a beer-and-wine store and the newest barbecue joint in town, among other businesses. The […]
Upcycled fashion creates an eco-friendly and uniquely Asheville look
In a way, upcycling is like the recycling we do with our cans and bottles: It also uses that concept of reusing and reducing waste material — but it’s not exactly cut from the same cloth.
Common wealth: Bringing It Home conference ponders local paths to collective prosperity
Perhaps not surprisingly, topics of discussion mirrored the diverse mix of folks who came together for the daylong event at A-B Tech’s Enka campus: small-business owners, investors, employees and assorted individuals with an interest in collective prosperity.
Bringing It Home conference focuses on key themes: localism, diversity and innovation
Xpress sat down with Jane Hatley, western regional director of Self-Help Credit Union, who says Asheville’s local economy stands out as a positive, entrepreneurial role model for economic development.
Bringing It Home speakers share efforts to strengthen local economy, offer insider tips
From Ed Whitfield’s keynote speech, “A Logical New Approach to Community Development,” to a panel on sources for local funding, there’s something for everyone at the March 18 Bringing It Home conference. Here’s a look at the main sessions and speakers.
The roots and reason of Asheville’s buy-local sensibility
The city’s local push has transformed from mere trend to full-fledged movement, a move that now seems natural, but how did local businesses get whipped into such a unified front?
Asheville Grown Business Alliance: Working for now and 50 years down the road
From the Get It! Guide: The Asheville Grown Business Alliance takes 2015 by storm with a focus on diversifying, learning and courageously leveraging our community’s assets to create radical resilience and prosperity for everyone.
‘State of Downtown Asheville’ address: Parking, safety improvements needed; busking debate looms
In the years ahead, Asheville Downtown Association Board President Adrian Vassallo wants the nonprofit to help cultivate a “dynamic downtown of innovation, business and opportunity for all,” he says. “Not just a downtown playground for visitors.”
Asheville nearly tops Popular Mechanics’ entrepreneurial cities roundup
Citing the ever-growing craft beer industry, quality of life and ample support for early-stage businesses, Popular Mechanics named Asheville the second best up-and-coming city for entrepreneurship in a Jan. 13 article.
Go Local 2015: Asheville Grown is growing up
It all began with a picture in a shop window, but as the Asheville Grown Business Alliance has developed from a poster to a loyalty card to a web of interdependent local businesses, the goal has always been, well, growth.
Go Local 2015 launches today
Funds from the sale of the Go Local card, a loyalty card that offers discounts at participating locally owned, independent businesses, will support Asheville City Public Schools and the Asheville Grown Business Alliance.
Going Beyond the Card: Go Local Gets Growing
It’s time to kick off the third year of Go Local, the loyalty card from Asheville Grown Business Alliance that raises money for Asheville City Schools by supporting the local economy. Part two of our series looks at how the movement to buy local is growing throughout Asheville and western North Carolina.