Mountain Xpress 11.06.24

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Local governments ask for state, federal help to address Helene aftermath

ARMY OF ANGELS

The French Broad River rose to about 27 feet in the town of Marshall, destroying much of the downtown. Despite the large-scale destruction, many in the community have volunteered their time and effort to clear mud and debris from the surviving buildings. Meanwhile, business owners are determined to reopen as soon as they can. This weeks’ cover features, starting left, Joel Friedman and Josh Copus.

How one local entrepreneur created a space for women business

Health professionals help residents unpack feelings

Flooded before opening day, much-anticipated RAD restaurants seek higher

Ashleigh

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS:

Oby Arnold, Mark Barrett, Eric Brown, Carmela Caruso, Cayla Clark, Brionna Dallara, Storms Reback, Kay West

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Cindy Kunst

ADVERTISING, ART & DESIGN MANAGER: Susan Hutchinson

LEAD DESIGNER: Scott Southwick

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS: Tina Gaafary, Caleb Johnson, Olivia Urban

MARKETING ASSOCIATES: Sara Brecht, Scott Mermel, Geoffrey Warren

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES: Hinton Edgerton, Jeff Fobes, Mark Murphy, Scott Southwick

WEB: Brandon Tilley

BOOKKEEPER: Amie Fowler

OFFICE MANAGER: Mark Murphy

ADMINISTRATION & BILLING: Hinton Edgerton, Lisa Watters

DISTRIBUTION: Susan Hutchinson, Cindy Kunst

DISTRIBUTION DRIVERS: Ashley Alms, Cass Kunst, Henry Mitchell, Courtney Israel Nash, Joey Nash, Carl & Debbie Schweiger, Gary Selnick, Noah Tanner, Mark Woodyard

Thanks to all the Helene heroes

Thank you to so many people who are heroes in the Helene hurricane shock.

Our neighbor Brooke Sechrist Dunham works for Performance Foodservice; her company gave her food to put out in her front yard for our neighborhood daily. Cheerios, protein bars, paper towels and much more. We are very grateful to Brooke and Performance Foodservice. Thanks to all our neighbors who found water and shared it that first week.

Crisis Response International set up in the B.B. Barns yard with food and water. Amazing angels!

We had two wellness checks from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I will always be grateful for their presence and all the planes and helicopters overhead. Thank you, National Guard, police, fire, EMS rescue, Duke Energy, Spectrum, Dominion Energy, the water department, tree services, American Red

Cross, hospitals, doctors, nurses, Publix for staying open, and now, school bus drivers and teachers. I am sure the list is long for our heroes. Thank you, Mayor Esther Manheimer, City Council and others for the updates. So much gratitude to my Massachusetts granddaughter, Rachel Fongeallaz, for all the survival supplies you sent, and my daughter, Marci Taylor, for your supportive advice from Beaufort. Thank you to all the calls that poured out of our phones when they finally worked. I cried!

Marci also sent Steele Creek Church in Charlotte with two carloads of people with survival supplies to our home. Dreama Colon was in charge of that blessed group. The second family they tried to reach in Fletcher was unreachable because of water.

This has been a spiritual experience that none of us will ever forget. COVID separated us; Helene united us!

Women’s words of wisdom

Following Helene, most WNC residents dwelled in tenebrific

bers.

For our Women in Business issue, we invited women in our local business communities to share insights they’ve gained through their work in Western North Carolina and how they are coping in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene. Look for their stories scattered throughout the issue. X

— Jan Dooley Asheville X

CARTOON BY RANDY MOLTON

CARTOON BY BRENT BROWN

Magic in the making

Charla Schlueter is the owner of Gamers’ Haunt, a shop focused on Magic the Gathering cards and accessories. The business is temporarily closed due to Tropical Storm Helene.

Xpress: What was the path that led you to founding your business?

Schlueter: I was incredibly lucky to buy Gamers’ Haunt from a friend. I wanted to help grow and build the community he had started. I love having a place where it isn’t about the bottom line but about making a difference in people’s everyday lives. I think where we find joy, such as in games, is where we make those differences.

What is the strangest aspect of running a business in Asheville?

Realizing what a small town Asheville is. I have reconnected with friends I haven’t seen in over a decade

because they play Magic and show up at my shop. Also, it is incredible to see the diverse backgrounds Magic attracts. Players are bartenders, lawyers, teachers, baristas, kids — really it is a game that spans not just age but professions.

How do you define success, and what should every entrepreneur know before launching a business?

I find success in having a loyal community base of people that will fight for your business because they love it as much as I do. The friends and connections I have made running Gamers’ Haunts are some of the most lasting and loyal relationships a person could hope for. I think success is important to be measured not just on how well you are doing but by how well you can take care of your employees. Entrepreneurs setting out need to find something they love enough to do 1,000 times a day and make sure it is something the community is also looking for. Follow-up question in the aftermath of Helene: How are you doing, and what is the greatest need for local business owners at this moment?

This is a difficult question. In so, so many ways I am fortunate. My inventory made it — which is fantastic, since it is cardboard! However, like so many businesses, ours has been inoperable due

to a tree falling on the building and rain causing damage. Other local businesses have opened their doors to us, offering places to shelter in until we have a space again. It is incredible how supportive Asheville businesses are of one another. Even “competitors” have reached their hand out helping us rebuild. As corny as it sounds, this is why I am in business — the community.

I want to be able to tell you that local businesses need support by sharing our stories. But, we need grants and funds from outside of WNC. Everyone is hurting here. From businesses to homes crushed, we need the world to remember us when the cameras have turned to other news.

But if nothing else, this storm has taught me to be flexible. It has been like building in quicksand. Every day I make a plan on how to figure out how to pay bills, employees and myself while creating a space for people to also escape and play games together. But I have been beyond humbled by the love and support of Magic players near and far. It has been wonderful to see. Thanks to Shaolin Kung Fu of Asheville for letting us use their space, allowing us to still host 100-plus players on the weekends — our wall decorations just have a few more swords than before. X

Photo courtesy of Schlueter

WOMEN IN BUSINESS

Helene, Howland Road and the Scooby van

My Asheville neighbor Matthew walked by my house one day and said, “I love your Scooby van!” That was not too long ago, but the name stuck. Then came Tropical Storm Helene, which devastated much of Western North Carolina. There were casualties, loss of homes, businesses and personal property. The van, parked for maintenance at Xpertech Car Care on Tunnel Road, was also affected. The business and the entire parking lot of vehicles were lost in the flood.

On Howland Road in North Asheville, a walnut tree the size of a train car fell on my next-door neighbor’s roof, taking with it a magnificent magnolia and weeping cherry tree. We heard a loud, crashing sound and discovered a chaotic world of fallen trees, limbs, branches and wires. My driveway became a meeting place for neighbors who shared feelings of bewilderment, anxiety and helplessness. At the same time, there was a sense of exhilaration because we were grateful to be alive and uninjured. Howland Road residents were blocked in on all sides by fallen 100-year-old trees. We had no electricity, water, internet or cell service.

One by one, neighbors came by to assess the damage. Trees were down everywhere. It was eerily quiet, and there were no sounds of sirens. We checked in on neighbors, including Juanita, the matriarch of Howland Road. As a child in Weaverville, Juanita did not have modern conveniences such as indoor plumbing. She still remembers times as far back as World War II. She was calmly making tea on her gas stove when I knocked on the door. Hurricane Helene was not slowing her down!

Even though our next-door neighbors had to climb over trees just to exit their homes, they still offered their generator power to anyone within reach. Cellphones and computers were plugged in and even trustingly left behind for hours at a time. Across the street, neighbors brought out a satellite dish and provided internet on their front porch. The stone wall of my driveway became a sharing station with free bottled water, sodas and canned food (fresh food would invite bears). Everyone in the neighborhood — friends, extended family and out-of-town guests — met for charging and camaraderie.

Since my van was at Xpertech, my lower driveway was empty, except for a porta-john that stood like a throne in the storm’s wake. When the toilets stopped flushing, I posted a sign saying, “Use Me. It’s Okay!”

On day four, it was time to break through the wall of trees on Howland Road. Brian, our newly crowned king of the neighborhood, arrived with a chain saw. My husband, Philip, got ropes out of the garage to tie to our 4Runner. Many neighbors arrived to help. There were

BETTER DAYS: The Scooby van parked at Lake Lure (with a view of Chimney Rock) during an outing before the storm. Photo courtesy of Christine Page

another 10-15 of us standing around to watch the spectacle. It was tricky work to remove the barricade of wood without further harming the neighbor’s home. It was a four-hour process of scheming, cutting, pulling dragging, engine revving, yelling and finally, loud cheering. We were free!

To my astonishment, people did not leave. Most stayed talking and sharing stories. Then, another neighbor turned to me and asked, “What happened to the Scooby van?” A small crowd gathered around as I told the story: The Scooby van, a 1990 Ford Econoline Sportsmobile, lived a long and amazing 35 years before drowning in the flood! It spent most of

its life in Salt Lake City before coming to Asheville. It was a great van that took me safely to all 48 states in the contiguous U.S. and much of Canada. Scooby was my home on and off during the COVID19 pandemic, as I lived in the van while traveling extensively around the country. And, most recently, I camped for five weeks in Maine.

After the storm, I was crying while searching for Scooby behind Xpertech. Then, like an angel from heaven, my friend Callie came driving by. Her hair was shimmering white in the afternoon sun as she leaned out of the car window and said, “What are you doing here,

SURROUNDED: Writer Christine Page stands amid the fallen trees from Tropical Storm Helene that hemmed in her neighborhood. Photo courtesy of Page

honey?” I explained the van saga and asked her the same question. Apparently, the GPS in her car was confused due to the washed-out roads. Callie was out doing what she does, always helping others and making Asheville the best that it can be. She was delivering water and diapers to people in need. I knew at that moment that everything was going to be OK and said to myself, “Many lost so much more in this storm than a dumb van!”

When the floodwaters subsided, I was able to get into the mud-covered van to collect a few belongings and say goodbye. The first thing I put in my pocket was a beaded necklace that my daughter Kim had hung from a little hook over 20 years ago. I then grabbed my go-to camping pants from Thailand and finally my favorite Northern Exposure coffee mug. I said my final farewell and kissed the van door as I closed it for the last time. The one thing I left behind on the dashboard was the freaking Magic 8 Ball! The last message said, “Ask again later …”

Flash forward: On Oct. 6, 2024, at 2:45 in the afternoon, the Scooby van was resurrected from the dead! No, this is not “just-another-happy-ending” story to tell around Halloween. This is true. My head started spinning when my friend Brad from Lake Norman heard about the plight of the van and called me.

In his very Southern accent he said, “Damn, I love that van! Heck, I can fix anything.” Brad is friends with Junior, as he calls him, and is well-connected in the world of racecars. I quickly drove to the death lot. There were Xs spray-painted all over the van by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and it was scheduled to be taken away for demolition the next day. I called AAA and had the van towed to my house. When the tow truck lifted the van out of the mud, enough water poured out, including the tailpipe, to fill a small swimming pool! The Scooby van is parked in my driveway once again. It’s covered in mud and barely alive. Thirty-five years is a good, long life for a van. Am I wrong to try to give it a bit more time? The Scooby van has been a part of me and a part of my life and identity for a long time. There is no water to respectfully clean it, but I am doing the best I can on the inside with towels and creek water.

Western North Carolina is still in recovery mode and will be for a long time. The plight of my van is trivial when my next-door neighbor’s house is still covered in fallen trees. Will it ever ride again? I don’t know. After cleaning and drying the van for three days, knowing that I did everything I could do before handing the keys over to my friend Brad, I shook the Magic 8 Ball once more, and it said, “You may rely on it.”

— Christine Page Asheville

Recently retired, Christine Page enjoys writing poetry, short stories and children’s books. X

NEWS

Army of angels Marshall cleans up after Helene

BY GREG PARLIER

gparlier@mountainx.com

The moment the French Broad River’s banks eclipsed the railroad tracks in downtown Marshall the morning of Sept. 27, business owner Josh Copus knew this storm wasn’t like past floods. An hour later, floodwaters from Tropical Storm Helene raged down Main Street.

From the steps of the Madison County Courthouse, the highest-positioned building on the street, Copus watched the flood’s current blow out the large windows of Zuma Coffee and Provisions across the street, sweeping chairs, tables and display cases downstream. The water would ultimately rise all the way up the courthouse’s six steps and enter the historic building, surpassing all recorded flood levels in Marshall’s history.

According to the flood gauge on the side of the Old Marshall Jail and Zadie’s Market, both of which Copus owns, the water rose to about 27 feet Friday evening, more than 3 feet higher than the famed 1916 flood.

“Even on Friday morning, we just didn’t know that it was going to be that kind of flood. So by the time you realize it, it’s almost less safe to try to leave,” Copus remembers.

When the water receded on Saturday, the small riverside town was unrecognizable. For a moment, Copus, who is also a potter, wondered whether it was worth the effort to rebuild.

“I asked myself big existential questions about whether this town should continue to be here. That’s how I felt in the beginning. I felt like the town was destroyed. You ask yourself, ‘Should we have a town here?’ And my honest takeaway was yes, we should. We should rebuild this town. This is a town worth saving,” Copus says defiantly.

Joel Friedman has owned and operated Zuma Coffee on Main Street in Marshall since 2001. As he watched Helene inundate downtown from the roof of his apartment complex on the other side of the river, Friedman’s first instinct was to hang it up. He figured his friends at Buchi, a kombucha company based in Marshall, would probably hire him, he says.

“I couldn’t see any way to be able to rebuild what I just got through doing for 23 years,” Friedman says. Those thoughts of despair proved fleeting for Friedman, Copus and others, however, as volunteers began

RECORD FLOOD: Josh Copus points to the 27-foot mark on the side of the Old Marshall Jail, which is how high floodwaters from Tropical Storm Helene reached on Sept. 27. The previous known record, from the flood of 1916, reached just under 24 feet in downtown Marshall. Photo by Greg Parlier

flooding into town almost as fast as the river had.

“Nobody here waited around for anyone to come save us. We just got going,” Copus says. “I had to ask myself if I wanted to do it. And then as soon as I saw everyone just doing it, I just fed off the energy of the other people. That’s when it shifted. If we had waited, it would be a real different story,” he notes.

But Marshall didn’t wait, and the town’s recovery efforts after the storm has been swift despite mountains of mud and torrents of misinformation.

TINY HOMES, HUGE HEART

Marshall locals Jeramy Stauffer and Kevin Ward headed into down-

town Marshall the Sunday after the storm looking for ways to help. The first thing they noticed was that people cleaning up the town needed food and supplies. So Stauffer set up his grill and a table under a pop-up tent at Nanostead, a tiny-home contracting company that he established in 2014. They stationed a car there to shuttle volunteers back and forth to downtown from the relief station at the top of Walnut Creek Road.

Then people started showing up. Lots of people. And the all-volunteer crew kicked into gear as a resource and volunteer hub for Marshall’s recovery.

“We had, maybe, four pairs of rubber boots [at the beginning], and were thinking we were going to go down and use them,” Stauffer says. “But

volunteers showed up, took our boots, and went down and used them,” allowing Stauffer and Ward to stay at Nanostead and coordinate.

“Within three days, we were pulling in 200 volunteers a day with shuttles,” Stauffer notes. Word spread on social media, and by week two, up to 300 volunteers a day were passing through Nanostead, so many that they had to shuttle people from the Ingles on U.S. 25/70 to the hub, and again from Nanostead into downtown.

Stauffer and his crew set up a full camp in the Nanostead parking lot, complete with a makeshift kitchen, a dining hall and a decontamination station where people can don personal protective equipment before they go down to the “front lines” downtown along the river. There was an information booth, an office, a wellness center and a “toolshed” where various tools were loaned out. Certified nurses were available at the hub’s wellness center several times a week, and people have come from as far as Burnsville and Swannanoa to receive free medical care, Stauffer says.

Not only volunteers, but donations of supplies poured in. The hub had durable protective coveralls, boots, gloves, eyewear and respirator masks for volunteers to wear when they got there.

“People could show up in street clothes, work all day in the mud … and leave just as clean as you were when you got there,” Stauffer notes. All manner of tools, from shovels and crowbars to pressure washers were delivered to Nanostead. There was so much inventory that Stauffer split the tool management team in two — hand and power tools. Meals were cooked by volunteers in the kitchen multiple times a day, and on Thursdays, there was live music in the evenings in Nanostead’s parking lot, offering a vital reprieve and celebration of everyone’s efforts, Stauffer says. Touring Asheville band Rising Appalachia even made an appearance.

The operation was run efficiently, with teams of volunteers assigned to specific roles, and a lead volunteer in charge of each category, from decontamination and wellness to inventory and parking, Stauffer says. When U.S. Army soldiers showed up, they marveled at the organized operation, asking how many disasters the crew had been to, says Tasha Pumphrey, a Nanostead employee in charge of information and social media at the hub.

Volunteers came from all over the place, Stauffer notes, with help from Ohio, Indiana and even as far away as Maine.

RESILIENT: Joel Friedman, left, and Josh Copus have been working to dig their respective businesses out from underneath a mountain of mud in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene. Photo by Caleb Johnson

The Army’s 101st Airborne out of Kentucky also showed up and willingly took orders from anyone who had a task.

“I never thought I’d be giving orders to Army soldiers,” Stauffer admits. “We couldn’t have done as much as we have without them.”

The energy at Nanostead has helped business owners feel the cleanup is possible.

“I went to Atlanta for a couple days, I came back, and I drove into Nanostead right in the hub of every-

and volunteer

thing,” Friedman says. “To see how organized they were, to see that they had already created a whole new community up there, it just filled me with a lot of inspiration. A lot of fortitude. And at that moment, not only did I realize what I meant to the community, the community was coming up to me, telling me what I meant and that they needed Zuma in their world again.”

Noticing that the paths of almost everyone involved in leading the cleanup effort had first crossed years ago at his cafe, Friedman knew he couldn’t quit. He knew if Marshall was going to rebuild, he had to be a part of it.

ART ON THE ISLAND

Back down at ground zero, Frank Lombardo has benefited from Nonostead’s efforts as well on Blannahassett Island, located precariously in the middle of the French Broad River a stone’s throw from downtown.

The island is home to Marshall High Studios, a cooperative artist studio space in the former Marshall High School, where Marshall’s funky, offbeat artistic identity is most evident.

Lombardo, a painter with a studio at Marshall High who has been leading cleanup efforts there, says the water reached 8 feet above the elevated ground floor inside the building.

As the water rose on Thursday, Lombardo, who says his father is a

HELENE HEROES: The co-owners of Nanostead, Jeramy Stauffer, left, and Kevin Ward, created a resource

hub for Madison County at their business, which is about 1.5 miles from the center of downtown Marshall. Photo by Greg Parlier

meteorologist, hurried to the island to rescue his paintings and supplies.

“There was a high point on the island. I could just barely pull onto the parking lot and get into the studios. I had to walk through a little bit of water,” he says.

He managed to rescue most of his things and moved the work of other artists who couldn’t make it to the island to higher spots within the building, with varying degrees of success.

After the storm, Lombardo couldn’t get back to the island until Sunday, when he climbed through a window and kicked the front door open from the inside. Faced with a seemingly insurmountable amount of cleanup work, Lombardo started digging.

“You can’t look at anything else, because no matter what you do, it’s like you’re not tackling the other massive problem. But soon people started showing up. We had a great volunteer squad; the community came together. And, I mean, we’ve been flying, we’ve been making great progress. We’re so organized,” Lombardo notes.

Marshall’s small size helped make organization a little easier, and when Nanostead stepped up to be the volunteer hub, everything else fell into place, Lombardo says.

NEXT PHASE

Thanks to all the volunteer labor and influx of supplies and machinery, many places like Zuma, the Old

ANGEL ARMY: A few of the hundreds of volunteers who have helped Marshall dig out from the mud walk through downtown Oct. 30. Photo by Caleb Johnson

Marshall Jail and Marshall High Studios are now cleared of the mountains of mud that Helene dumped inside. Now, much of Marshall is moving into the next phase of needs: skilled labor.

For Copus, that means it’s time to switch from “manual labor Josh” to what he calls “clipboard Josh.”

For the buildings still standing, a structural engineer will have to determine if they can be renovated for occupancy. Electricians and plumbers are needed to rewire buildings and shore up any leaks. Friedman and others need to redesign their spaces and order new equipment and inventory.

Stauffer and Ward are quick to point out that volunteers are still

Toxic misinformation

The aftermath of disasters are famously ripe for the spread of misinformation, as communication channels are down and traditional media organizations move slower than social media.

Early in Helene recovery, a post about toxic boot-melting mud in downtown Marshall circulated on Facebook and Instagram, leading to a swirl of concern from the outside community and reports to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ). There was speculation that dangerous chemicals had spilled into the French Broad River from PVC pipe manufacturer Silver-Line Plastics in Woodfin, now owned by IPEX Industries, and the mud left in downtown Marshall was unsafe to handle, even with gloves.

Several people had minor skin irritations from touching the mud, those working downtown acknowledged, including one worker that spoke to Xpress. But nothing rose to the level that

the viral post suggested, such as melting boots or chemical burns.

After a visit to Marshall, NCDEQ released a statement Oct. 7 reporting that “No injuries were confirmed related to potential exposure in the area.”

For its part, a spokesperson from IPEX told Xpress Oct. 11 that SilverLine does not keep any stockpiles of solvents or caustics on-site, and does not use or have the products used to produce PVC resin. Instead, the facility receives already manufactured PVC resin, which is nonhazardous and inert, to produce pipes, according to IPEX’s Andrea Arch

“After flood waters receded, a FEMA HAZMAT team was on-site and completed an assessment — they did not find any chemical leakage on our property. In addition, we have been and continue to collaborate with local and federal health, environmental and safety

needed, however. They plan to keep up recovery momentum, even as Nanostead transitions back to operating as a business, with their new relief nonprofit, the Nanostead Foundation.

Stauffer aims to continue to be a hub not just for Madison County but also for surrounding areas with even more intense needs. They’ve been sending extra supplies to Yancey and Mitchell counties from the beginning and plan to continue. He wants to work with organizations doing similar things in other communities, such as BeLoved in Asheville, to ensure resources get where they’re most needed. In the medium to long term, Stauffer notes that Nanostead is perfectly positioned to start pro-

authorities, including the U.S. EPA,” Arch wrote in an email.

IPEX and NCDEQ’s statements line up with the experience of those on the ground, including Jeramy Stauffer, Josh Copus and Joel Friedman, all of whom were engaged with the effort every day for the first three weeks.

“I’m down here, and none of that was real. No boots melted, no clothes were eaten. We had a few cases of minor skin irritations. That’s what they were. And on the internet, it turned into chemical burns,” Copus says.

“The level of misinformation is extreme across the board, and it’s actually extremely unhelpful. It hurt us. That made our already hard job harder and in Marshall, we’ve taken it seriously from day one,” he adds.

Of course, no one denies the likely presence of gasoline, propane and fecal matter in the floodwaters, and therefore the mud left behind. That’s why Nanostead set up their decontamination station the way they did, Stauffer says.

viding what is now needed more than ever: housing.

Stauffer says the company is working with landowners willing to donate some space so that Nanostead can build mobile tiny homes or locate donated RVs for displaced residents.

And Marshall’s downtown businesses are hoping to keep up fundraising momentum as the national media spotlight fades away. For Stauffer, continuing to help his town rebuild is as easy a decision as it was right after the storm hit.

“All of our best friends own the businesses in Marshall. We just watched the livelihood of our best friends float down the river. You know, that’s terrible. And so it was not even an obligation. It was just more of like, we have to do this,” Stauffer says of rebuilding. X

How to donate

To volunteer, donate to Marshall’s recovery via the Nanostead Foundation or to offer land or RVs for displaced people in Madison County, visit avl.mx/e8x. Alternatively, GoFundMe accounts are set up for many businesses in Marshall, including Zuma Coffee and Provisions, the Old Marshall Jail, Zadie’s Market and Marshall High Studios. Find a list with links to Marshall-related fundraisers at avl.mx/e8y. X

Volunteers suit up in personal protective equipment in one place, and when they return from downtown, get washed off in a separate location. The Tyvek suits, boots and gloves get washed before they are used again.

Responding to reports of toxins, French Broad Riverkeeper Hartwell Carson conducted soil testing in Marshall the week after the storm. In results announced Oct. 23, Carson says just two of the 135 pollutants he tested for came back positive. Of the two — trimethylbenzene, which is associated with petroleum, appears to cause the most health concerns, but nothing that might cause a chemical burn, he reports. Carson says he doesn’t think the levels of trimethylbenzene in the sample are high enough to cause serious concern. Ultimately, Carson, along with NCDEQ officials and Buncombe County officials, recommend using personal protective equipment when cleaning up along the river, and avoid skin and eye contact with the mud. X

FEMA DEBRIS REMOVAL GUIDELINES for Private Residential Properties

• City of Asheville regular curbside waste collection customers should download the AVL Collects app or sign up for sanitation alerts here: ashevillenc.gov/AVLcollects

• NO construction debris, concrete, or other bulky or hazardous items in carts.

• Roadway debris collection has begun in areas with critical infrastructure throughout the city and county.

• Do not block roadway. Ensure access for large trucks and emergency vehicles. There will be more than one pass for debris collection, so you don’t have to get it all out at once.

• The community can begin to place debris to the curb in the right of way.

• Debris should be SEPARATED at the curb according to the diagram.

• For more info, visit https://www.ashevillenc.gov/helene/debrisremoval/

Have a professional inspect your damaged property before attempting to clean up or repair any damage.

Wear protective gear and exercise caution during cleanup.

Check out FEMA safety guidelines for PPE and personal safety while cleaning up.

The road to recovery

Local business owners navigate relief resources

BY BROOKE RANDLE

brandle@mountainx.com

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

“I

DELIVERANCE: Jennie Townsend, owner of Kickback AVL, has been working with local chefs to deliver food to her community, despite income loss caused by Tropical Storm Helene. Photo by Kickback AVL

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 Ashevillebased 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 busi-

COMMUNITY SUPPORT: Fiber artist Caroline Wilson says local grants and crowdsourcing efforts have helped keep her afloat after Helene. Photo courtesy of Wilson

nesses. 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

IN BUSINESS

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.” X

On the way to achieving your big-picture goal

Photo by Rachael McIntosh

Salley Williamson is the owner and founder of Piney Mountain Farm, a local u-pick flower farm.

Xpress: What was the path that led you to founding your business?

Williamson: I was incredibly lucky to find our property, only 4 miles from downtown Asheville, in 2011 before the real estate market went nuts. Since then, I’ve enjoyed gardening, caring for our animals and participating in farmers markets, while also working in development for Open Hearts Art Center and being a touring musician with Underhill Rose. My daughter was born at the beginning of the pandemic, and my focus then shifted to being Mama. I dreamed of sharing the beauty of our farm with our community for many years. Now that my daughter is in pre-K, I am able

to focus on bringing that dream to life at Piney Mountain Farm by sharing my passion for gardening through our u-pick flower farm.

What’s been the strangest aspect of running a business in Asheville?

Two things come to mind. No. 1: We receive regular phone calls and messages from real estate agents and developers asking if we are interested in selling our farm. (No, we are not selling!) No. 2: We’ve also experienced a major increase in bear sightings over the past year. It seems a connection could be made between these two aspects of living in Asheville.

How do you define success, and what should every entrepreneur know before launching a business?

Success for me is defined by the joy and satisfaction of our customers. A memorable, unique and worthwhile experience is our largest priority when someone takes the time to visit our farm and experience a connection with nature here with our flowers, farm animals and open, pastoral space. Entrepreneurship, especially for a small farm business at its start, is a major balancing act between the manual labor involved and the hustle of developing social media content and promotional materials and all the daily logistics

of running a business. It is easy to feel overwhelmed, and a more constructive focus is celebrating the incremental tasks completed and checked off the list on the way to achieving your big-picture goal. Follow-up question in the aftermath of Helene: How are you doing, and what is the greatest need for local business owners at this moment?

It is amazing how a catastrophe can completely change your perspective overnight. Helene abruptly and rudely upended our lives and cleared our calendars. Prestorm, I was juggling a lot and concerned over things that just don’t seem to matter anymore. I imagine that a lot of our community can relate to this sentiment. Our flowers were mostly wiped out by the wind and rain. We had around 30 trees fall in total on our 5-acre property, destroying a farm truck and cargo trailer. But we are safe, our animals were unharmed, our house is intact, and we are tremendously grateful for that. I am grieving with our community and surrounding areas and looking to help however possible. I am also already dreaming of flowers to plant in the spring! The greatest need for local business owners seems to be monetary contributions and sales or online purchases. X

WOMEN

Brianne Hudak is the founder and head of school at Journeys School for the Gifted and Talented.

Xpress: What was the path that led you to founding your business?

ules, budgets and effective communications to ensure accessibility for those interested. It’s an exciting challenge to juggle and find solutions for as it brings greater diversity and outreach. How do you define success, and what should every entrepreneur know before launching a business?

Your Guide to a Brighter Future

As the philosopher Paulo Freire once said, “Education is freedom”; knowledge leads to the breakdown of barriers and allows people to take action and resolve issues. Success is touching the lives of every student and their families at Journeys so they can confidently navigate the world around them. It’s creating lifelong learners and leaders who value education and use it to make a positive impact on their communities and beyond/contribute to the greater good. Success is shining a light on the field that I love, amplifying the voices of those who are influencing positive change in schools and communities, encouraging more support and awareness for this population of learners, and assisting families in finding the best educational fit for their child. The bottom line is that education influences everyone and everything. Before launching a business, every entrepreneur should deeply reflect on their own knowledge, passion and ambition. Are they courageous enough to take risks and stand by their product no matter what? Do they have the skills needed to balance business with leadership? Do they understand how to strategically plan for sustainability and success? Have they done marketing and product or content research that gives them expertise in the field? Do they engage in networking opportunities to share their ideas and put plans into action? Entrepreneurs need to know that good decisions are made carefully and over time, not in haste. Those who back you will appreciate a well-developed plan and ongoing commitment to maximizing potential.

Follow-up question in the aftermath of Helene: How are you doing, and what is the greatest need for local business owners at this moment?

Hudak: I have been in education for almost 20 years, serving in both educator and administrative roles in public, private and charter schools. Having been in the trenches and climbed the ladder, I encountered gaps in equity, biases and misinformation surrounding exceptional students, leaving them overlooked and underserved. The challenges and barriers to serving these individuals in traditional settings can create underachievement, withdrawal, behavioral issues and mental health concerns. I became a passionate advocate for this community and their appropriate education, striving to provide a place for our future leaders, our dreamers and doers to be seen, heard and moved forward. Gifted and talented, twice-exceptional (2e) individuals are a neurodiverse population that process information and perceive the world differently. Due to their unique abilities and needs, they require an environment that is nurturing and allows them to develop holistically through extraordinary opportunities and specialized support. Journeys School for the Gifted and Talented has been years in the making; it is an innovative independent school for both high-ability and high-potential learners designed for all families in WNC searching for an outsidethe-box experience that will engage and inspire their children. The school utilizes current research and best practices that focus on each child’s unique abilities, interests and learning styles. Education must evolve alongside a rapidly changing society and focus on being sustainable, equitable and inclusive. As an educational entrepreneur and change agent, I am offering an alternative to schooling in the area that challenges the status quo and can shift attitudes, perspectives and knowledge surrounding high-quality, 21st-century education.

What’s been the strangest aspect of running a business in Asheville?

The “strangest” aspect of starting an educational institution near Asheville is the uniqueness of the areas served. Journeys School for the Gifted and Talented is open to all families throughout WNC; therefore, we must be accommodating to all backgrounds. We have to consider things like sched-

Journeys School’s remodeling and construction has been delayed due to Helene, but we are aiming for project completion at the end of this year. We are now enrolling for the 2025-26 school year. The greatest need for organizations in the area is support. Journeys is more than a school, it is a community of ongoing holistic support throughout a child’s entire learning journey. At this time, the school is focused on building and strengthening our community to offer exceptional education to exceptional learners in an exceptional school. A foundation for student scholarships has been created to assist families impacted by Helene. More information can be found at www.journeysfoundation. org. X

Photo courtesy of Hudak

After the storm

BY JUSTIN M c GUIRE

jmcguire@mountainx.com

Local governments throughout Western North Carolina are facing a number of critical needs in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene, including temporary housing, infrastructure repair and debris removal.

Additionally, towns and cities are dealing with damaged farmlands, reduced tax revenue and cash flow issues.

That was the message officials sent at an Oct. 23 meeting of the Land of Sky Regional Council Board of Delegates. The council includes representatives from governments in Buncombe, Henderson, Madison and Transylvania counties.

The meeting also was attended by U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards as well as representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and several state agencies.

“We haven’t had time to look around and be sad,” said Forrest Gilliam, town administrator for Marshall, one of the hardest-hit communities in the region.

“We have to focus on what’s right in front of us and what needs to be done, and that’s what I’m going to be doing.”

But Gilliam and others say they cannot address the problems on their own, given already thin resources.

“These are the things that we really need help with, beyond just our city or our county,” said Brevard Mayor Maureen Copelof. “We really need both state and federal help to come in and bring these resources so that we can move forward.”

’NOWHERE TO GO’

With thousands of WNC residents displaced by Helene, the need to find temporary housing has put a strain on communities already dealing with severe housing shortages.

“We have families with absolutely nowhere to go,” Copelof said. “They are on people’s couches, they are staying at the Brevard Music Center in unheated rooms and cabins. We have no temporary housing available within the county, and none of our hotels take the [FEMA transitional housing] vouchers.”

City officials have contacted housing rental companies and put out a call for RVs, but they can’t solve the problem themselves, she said.

“We really do need some of the disaster preparedness agencies to step up and get some temporary housing to the folks that need it now, not in three months,” Copelof said.

Local governments ask for state, federal help to address Helene aftermath

TIME OF NEED: On Oct. 11, Gov. Roy Cooper, center, toured Fletcher’s Bill Moore Community Park, which sustained damage from Tropical Storm Helene. Also pictured are Fletcher Mayor Preston Blakely, left, and Mayor Pro Tem Sheila Franklin. Officials from FEMA also were on hand for the visit. Photo courtesy of the Town of Fletcher

Gilliam said Marshall has about 30 single-family housing units that are not inhabitable, including eight that were destroyed. The remainder may be offline for six months to a year.

“We need help with that because we cannot coordinate a housing program,” he said.

Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Chair Brownie Newman said the county’s disaster shelters are housing more than 270 people. But those shelters, which include the A-B Tech Conference Center and WNC Agriculture Center, soon will need to be transitioned back to their original purposes.

“There’s also a huge need for emergency home repair as so many homes have suffered various degrees of damage,” he said. “If we can assist families with some of those critical needs, then it can help more people get back into their homes or stay in their homes and reduce the need for shelter space.”

The state owns property in the Swannanoa area that could potentially be used for temporary housing, Newman said.

Rebecca McCall, chairman of the Henderson County Board of Commissioners, said the county is struggling to find housing for volunteers. “I’ve been told that there’s volunteers that want to come from other states, but we don’t have any place to put them,” she said.

INFRASTRUCTURE FUNDING CRITICAL

Infrastructure repair, particularly for roads and bridges damaged by

the storm, is another top priority, officials agreed.

“Getting that infrastructure funding for our region is going to be so absolutely critical,” Copelof said. “And, as others have said, we need to build back better. We need to fix some of these problems. We need to figure out how we control these floodwaters that are repeatedly hitting us.”

Montreat, which suffered significant damage to all its roads and bridges, will need help financing repairs, said Mayor Pro Tem Blake Mason. “It’s not just paying for the infrastructure, it’s administering it,” he said. “We’ve got a town staff of 13 people. It’s going to take massive amounts of time to administer all the road construction, all the bridge construction. Thirteen people just can’t do it.”

Elisabeth Ervin, vice mayor of Woodfin, said officials have a lot of questions about how to get funding for infrastructure repairs, including work needed at the town’s two riverfront parks.

Marshall’s Gilliam also emphasized the need for financial help. Money from the state’s Helene relief bill and guidance from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality has helped the town survive the cash flow hit of having a damaged wastewater treatment plant. Additionally, the town has been able to tap into its fund balance, Gilliam said. “But you can’t have a fund balance big enough in this situation,” he added.

McCall said Henderson County needs help paying for repairs to more than 200 private roads.

The Park at Flat Rock sustained serious damage, said Flat Rock

Commissioner Barbara Jeter. “One of the issues in our park is that we had a beekeeper that had established 12 hives of bees, 11 of which were destroyed. So now we have a lot of very unhappy bees swarming around in our park because we’re trying to do our cleanup.”

Fletcher Mayor Preston Blakely said some of the town’s manufacturing plants were damaged. “They need support at various levels to move forward with resiliency and success,” he said.

Blakely added that the town is implementing a moratorium on most new development in the floodplain. “Additionally, we would like to look into whether certain types of developments should be prohibited outright in designated floodplain areas,” he said.

CLEANING UP

Biltmore Forest estimates it will have to remove about 340,000 cubic yards of vegetative debris as a result of Helene, Town Manager Jonathan Kanipe said. “That equals about 3 1/2 football fields standing 60 feet high,” he added. “From our standpoint, that’s our biggest issue in terms of cleanup right now. There were probably tens of thousands of trees that came down in town.”

Laurel Park Commissioner Deb Bridges said Henderson County has helped remove debris, but the community faces some unusual challenges.

“Our town is built on a mountain, and a significant number of homes are built on very steep slopes and have limited access to curbside space for the debris,” she said. “Even if they can get their debris down to the street, they have very little space to put it. So we’re working on ways that we can assist our residents to be able to get that debris to the street.”

Additionally, officials are concerned the amount of debris has increased the risk of wildfires in the heavily forested town. “Everywhere you look, we’ve got trees down, we’ve got piles of brush,” Bridges said.

Meanwhile, as Marshall digs out from the flooding that decimated the town, Gilliam emphasized the need for people on the ground to help with administrative tasks.

“We are a small community government, and we have to have help in navigating this process. You’ve got to work with us. This can’t just be funding announcements because those do us no good if we don’t have the time to read them and don’t have the time to figure out how we go about it.” X

Repeat trauma

BY PAT MORAN

pmoran@mountainx.com

Editor’s note: This article was reported and written before Tropical Storm Helene. Xpress added an update to include slurs directed at Jewish people in the wake of the storm.

For the past year, residents have seen visible displays of the disparate views of the Israel-Hamas war. What started as civil protests, including appeals to Asheville City Council, banners and demonstrations, have devolved into more aggressive incidents: a swastika painted on a restaurant window, a melee at the West Asheville Public Library and more recently, defaced campaign signs.

While the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel shone a light on the Middle East conflict and its complexity, disagreements within the Jewish community and simmering antisemitism in Western North Carolina are nothing new.

HISTORY OF HATE

Since 2019, the Asheville Police Department has reported 12 anti-religion hate crimes, resulting in 15 charges, all of them anti-Jewish. Three occurred this year, one in April and two in June. These figures do not reflect incidents where charges were not filed.

In September, signs for Caleb Rudow, the candidate running to unseat U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards in District 11, were defaced with a Star of David in the Kenilworth neighborhood. Nearby signs for Kamala Harris/Tim Walz were vandalized in the same manner.

In response, Rudow offered the following statement:

“Over the past few months, I’ve witnessed similar acts of vandalism and antisemitism — public signs being defaced, including those I’ve personally tried to clean up. Let me be clear: These acts of hate are painful. They are designed to intimidate and spread fear. But I will not be deterred. Not as your representative. Not as your candidate. Not as your neighbor. And most certainly not as a proud Jewish American.”

Rabbi Batsheva H. Meiri of Congregation Beth HaTephila, tells Xpress two bomb threats (on Dec. 18 and Jan. 3) were made against the synagogue.

Nationally, an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) survey showed that

for the first time, younger Americans more readily accept classic antisemitic tropes — including allegations of dual loyalty and conspiracies about Jewish control of the media and Wall Street — than older generations.

The ADL also reported a rash of extremist groups that depicted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as being more concerned with Israel than helping after Hurricane Helene, one group even suggesting that Jewish people “directed” the hurricane to destroy America. Some posts singled out Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer.

“How they’re going at me is not surprising because [U.S. Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene has made this inference that Jews control the weather, and I’m a Jewish mayor and somehow there’s a correlation,” Manheimer told the Asheville Watchdog

Meiri says antisemitism has been bubbling in Asheville and Western North Carolina for a long time.

“We’ve tightened our security [at the synagogue],” Meiri notes. But she adds that security for local Jews and Jewish institutions has been tight long before Oct. 7 and long before the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting on Oct. 27, 2018. That tragedy left 11 people dead and seven injured.

“We haven’t had an unlocked building, ever,” Meiri says, who became her congregation’s rabbi in 2008.

According to the Goldring/ Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL), many Jews settled in Asheville in the 1880s. In 1891, 27 Jewish men formed Congregation Beth HaTephila, literally “House of Prayer.” Bikur Cholim, later known as Beth Israel Congregation, was formed by 1899.

In 1932, the Silver Shirts, an antisemitic, pro-Nazi organization founded its headquarters in Asheville on Charlotte Street. Eight years later, the paramilitary organization gained an unlikely neighbor — the Asheville Jewish Community Center (JCC).

“[Charlotte Street’s] two synagogues … were meeting the religious needs of the Jewish community, but a group of Jewish families were looking for a place to meet their social and cultural needs,” says Ashley Lasher, the JCC’s executive director. (The Silver Shirts dissolved in 1941.)

In the 1960s and ’70s, Xpress contributor Jerry Sternberg writes, Jews were banned from Asheville country clubs, where many business relationships were cemented on the golf course or in the club bar.

Local Jews endure ongoing antisemitism

SECURITY CONCERNS: Rabbi Batsheva H. Meiri of Congregation Beth HaTephila says the synagogue’s doors have always been locked. Photo by Laurie Johnson

Viewed through the lens of time, that discrimination seems simple and easy to understand. Not so today.

TERMS OF DISAGREEMENT

Even within the Jewish community, there is a dispute over what is antisemitic. Take, for example, the skirmish at the library. On June 29, David Moritz, Monica Buckley and Bob Campbell attended and livestreamed the seminar “Strategic Lessons from the Palestinian Resistance,” present-

SCHOOLROOM ANTISEMITISM:

Becca Mericle says the Jewish Community Relations Council combats bigotry in local schools. Photo by Edwin Mericle

ed as part of the fifth annual Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair (ACAB). Attendees took exception to the livestream and tried to block their view. Then the pushing began.

One side says people are using the Israel-Hamas war conflict to unleash long-simmering hatred against Jews. The other side, which includes pro-Palestinian activists as well as several Jews, says opponents are weaponizing antisemitism to target business owners and activists who do not support Zionism.

Moritz, a self-described Zionist, defines the term as someone who believes Israel has a right to exist.

“I do consider myself someone who stands up to bullies,” says Moritz, the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors. After witnessing Asheville’s pro-Palestinian protests and presentations before City Council by pro-Palestinian peace activists, Moritz has consistently presented his version of Middle East history and events to Council.

“A Zionist is someone who believes in Israel’s right to exist,” writes Jennifer, an activist who launched an Instagram page where she deems which local businesses are safe for Jewish people. (She asked that her last name be withheld.)

Peace activist Nicole Lopez, who has asked City Council several times to adopt a Gaza cease-fire resolution, even after MayorManheimer said Council would not consider it, questions the notion that Israel — or any nation — has a right to exist.

“Do I believe that the United States has the divine right to exist? No. Do I think any nation has the divine right to exist? Personally, that is not within my belief system,” Lopez says.

“Moritz and Buckley [are] trying to conflate Zionism, which is a nationalist political ideology dating back to the 19th century, with Judaism, a faith dating back thousands of years,” emails Matthew Maizels of the local chapter of progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization Jewish Voices for Peace.

SO WHAT’S ANTISEMITIC?

“The most simple definition of antisemitism is ‘anti-Jewish behavior or expression,’” says Becca Mericle, chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Greater Asheville.

Mericle notes that the JCRC, which combats bigotry in schools around greater Asheville, lists several definitions of antisemitism on its website, including the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition.

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed

as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities,” reads the definition.

In June, the N.C. General Assembly passed House Bill 942, known as the “Shalom Act,” which adopts HRA’s definition of antisemitism into state law.

Another phrase used by pro-Palestinan groups that triggers a strong response is “from the river to the sea.”

“The phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ is considered threatening by some, particularly within the Jewish community, because it is often interpreted as a call for the elimination of the state of Israel, [but] for many who use the phrase, it represents a call for freedom, justice and equality for all people living in the region, including both Palestinians and Israelis,” says Abby Lublin, the executive director of Carolina Jews for Justice.

Several pro-Palestinian activists, two of them Jewish, have condemned the confrontational tactics employed by Moritz, Buckley and Jennifer.

“Monica gets as close as possible with a sign or a flag in your face while Jennifer films. If you move the flag, they start screaming assault,” says Melissa Weiss, owner of Melissa Weiss Pottery. Weiss is also Jewish and has participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Xpress reached out to individuals who appeared on Jennifer’s “safe for Jewish people” list. Fifteen people spoke with Xpress, six of them business owners. All questioned Jennifer’s motives.

“What she really is doing is trying to find out which businesses are Zionists and support what Israel is doing in regards to the war in Gaza,” wrote one business owner who requested anonymity. Other business owners say their pushback at Mortiz, Buckley and Jennifer is due not to antisemitism but what they view as bullying.

BRINGING IT DOWN A NOTCH

Lublin says it’s important to understand the trauma of life experiences that may underlie some Jews’ staunch Zionism and attachment to the state of Israel.

“They may have memories or lived experiences of Jews being unsafe in the world, [such as] Holocaust trauma, and so tie their sense of safety to Israel as a Jewish state,” Lublin says.

“Being a part of the Jewish community, I can see my friends and family struggle to separate valid, important criticism and condemnation of the

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA:

The two opposing sides cannot agree on definitions, says Carolina Jews for Justice’s Abby Lublin. Photo by Abbi Thomas

war versus attacks on Jews for being Jewish, for being believers in the state of Israel and for wanting the return of the hostages,” writes Mayor Manheimer in an email to Xpress Mericle, who teaches English and journalism at Asheville High School, says JCRC strives to build greater understanding between Jews and

non-Jews at area schools. In cases of antisemitism in the classroom, JCRC intervenes and mediates, bringing parents, teachers and administrators together to get a satisfactory resolution.

Bringing diverse people together is also a key strategy employed by Carolina Jews for Justice, says Lisa Forehand, the Asheville-based statewide organizer for the coalition.

“[CJJ] is a big tent, and discussions around Israel and Palestine amongst Jews are eternal, although clearly heightened. We can still come together and work on reproductive justice, voter engagement or climate change, regardless of [our] feelings about Israel and Palestine. That’s been a unifying force,” Forehand says.

Lubin notes that she grew up with the worldview that Jews were simply hated and would always be so. It was through social justice work with CJJ that she began to see that Jewish people’s struggles were tied to the struggles of people around the world to attain dignity and justice.

Similarly, Lasher notes that the Jewish Community Center was launched to build an inclusive community. That community, which numbers 6,000 members, extends to

WNC’s non-Jewish population, who are welcome at the community center.

“In connecting non-Jewish people to Jewish tradition and culture and spaces and people, we are demystifying who Jews are. We are offering positive, fulfilling engagement that has no intention of anything other than education, connection and relationship building. It’s just building joy,” Lasher says.

Rudow also stresses that dissension and hatred can be overcome by communities coming together.

“Let’s not lose sight of what this really shows us,” Rudow writes. “It’s a reminder of something we’ve long understood: Even as some would like to dismiss conversations about identity, those of us with different identities still face real threats. And we cannot — and will not — be silenced through fear. We won’t be intimidated into submission. So, to everyone who has ever felt different, to everyone who has ever been targeted for who they are, I say this: Stand tall in your identity. Wear it as a badge of honor. They can’t have our fear. They can’t take our pride. And this battle for the soul of our nation — it’s not one they’re going to win. We’re here. We’re proud. And we’re not going back.”

Tourism plummets in the wake of Helene

HOTEL HEARTBREAK: Weekly hotel revenue has dropped in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene. Screenshot courtesy BCTDA,

Facing a precipitous drop in hotel room sales and lodging tax revenue, the region will need to recover from a natural disaster to avoid an economic one, Vic Isley, president and CEO of Explore Asheville, told the Buncombe County Tourism Authority (BCTDA) at its Oct. 30 meeting at the Explore Asheville boardroom at 27 College Place.

In a presentation forecasting revenue projections for fiscal year 2025, which runs from July 2024 to June 2025, Jennifer Kass-Green, Explore Asheville vice president of culture and business affairs, painted a sober-

ing picture of the local tourism industry in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene to 10 board members. Vice Chair Matthew Lehman was absent.

Week-by-week hotel revenue comparisons show that revenue dropped 24% the week of Sept. 22 compared with a year earlier and 50% the week of Sept. 29. Revenue fell 44% the weeks of Oct. 6 and Oct. 13, the latest available. Compared with the same month a year earlier, lodging tax revenue plummeted 45% in October.

Beyond that, the forecasts are grim. Lodging tax revenue comparing November 2023 to November of this year is projected to drop 45%. Monthly forecasts through June show year-over-year declines ranging from 45% in January to 30% in June.

“What we were hearing even prior to Hurricane Helene is that lodging and sales tax collections were already experiencing periods of weakness in 2024,” Kass-Green said. “We were counting on a robust fall season to make up some of that difference.”

The TDA projects the year’s net tax revenues for Fiscal Year 2025 will drop 29%, from $34.3 million to $24.2 million. To make up for some of it, staff proposed pulling $9.2 million from its contingency fund.

Board members Elizabeth Putnam and Michael Lusick asked if

that would be enough money to cover the budget shortfall if recovery from Helene takes longer than expected.

“If we underfund, we won’t survive,” Lusick said. “In your gut, do you think you have enough to do the job?”

Isley said she thinks so. “You have to put gas in the tank to be able to go somewhere,” she said.

The board asked to see a revised budget forecast at its next meeting, Thursday, Nov. 21, at 9 a.m., at the Explore Asheville boardroom.

Board proposes grace period for late fees

The board discussed waiving penalties for businesses that pay occupancy taxes late during the region’s recovery from Helene. The proposal does not waive payments of occupancy taxes, only additional fees that would result from late filing or payments.

The board unanimously approved waiving the occupancy tax penalty fees. The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners will consider the move at its Thursday, Nov. 7, meeting. — Pat Moran  X

Support for the journey

How one local entrepreneur created a space for women business owners

BY CARMELA CARUSO

carmela.caruso@yahoo.com

Editor’s note: We learned at press time that Mad Genius Studios will close on Nov. 30 to make way for a business washed away in flooding. All planned events have been canceled. Instead, a farewell party will be held later this month. Mad Genius hopes to reopen in a different location in 2025.

Throughout years of working with entrepreneurs in Asheville, Shawndra Russell watched women struggle to find a voice at the table in male-dominated industries. She dreamed of having a space where women in business could collaborate, get help, network and celebrate each other. A women-only “clubhouse” of sorts, says Russell. Today, tucked behind Atelier Maison & Co. furniture studio on Sweeten Creek Road, Russell runs Mad Genius Studios, a cozy commons where she hosts a variety of events, including popups, podcasts, lunch-and-learns, boardrooms, coworking days and just about anything that could support women in business. And in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene, she has used the space as a hub for staging disaster relief distribution and volunteer activities.

“We are the anti-format. We’re experimental. Whatever anybody wants to do, let’s talk about how we do it,” Russell says. “[Mad Genius Studios] just really is a way to bring us all together and have a stronger voice as a business community.”

NETWORKING KNOW-HOW

Russell has been in Asheville for the past decade, working in public-facing positions as a high school English teacher, a freelance reporter and a business owner. She first began connecting with entrepreneurs and growing her network while writing for Mountain Xpress and the now-closed Capital at Play magazine, and later expanded her network as a podcast co-host for The Great Reset In 2019 she became co-owner of Harmony AVL+media, a home technology company. In her work with Harmony,

she witnessed firsthand the hurdles women in business face, especially those working in the trades. She recalls sitting in coed spaces within the business community and “seeing some women shrink back or not talk as much” while men tended to dominate discussions. That’s when she decided, “We need a place where even the shyest woman in the room would feel comfortable.”

When Russell heard about a commercial space available for rent — two spacious rooms and plenty of parking — she knew it was the perfect opportunity to make her vision come to life. She signed the lease and opened Mad Genius Studios in January of this year at 121 Sweeten Creek Road.

The location is comfy and welcoming. Plush, colorful, mismatched chairs surround a long table more likely to be found in a dining room than a conference room. Bright orange shelves decorate one wall while natural wood beams cover another. Giant scratch papers scrawled with notes hang around the room. A high-pile rug softens the floor.

While the space is laid-back and settling, Russell’s outgoing personality keeps the energy high. She talks fast as

she explains her vision, leaning forward as if she can’t wait to share what she and other women business owners have been up to this past year. A sketchbook sits propped open on the table in front of her, a network of notes constellating across the pages. She occasionally picks up a pen to jot reminders and ideas.

“I don’t have to do business the way that it’s been done for a billion years,” says Russell. “It can be done in a different way, and I can make it really, really fun.”

A WOMEN’S CLUB

Russell has hosted groups at Mad Genius Studios for just about everything — lunch-and-learns that carry over an extra hour to allow for informal collaboration, podcasts, a pop-up coffee shop with rom-coms playing in each room, and even a pickleball group. Russell and a dedicated group of women meet at Asheville Sports Club every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. to play. What can a pickleball group do for women in business? It’s all about collaborating and connecting, says Russell.

“Can we make women feel supported while they’re going down this journey? Because it can be superlonely, superoverworked, grinding it out all the time. So having each other, and all the circles that are forming … we’re helping strengthen everyone,” she explains.

Jennifer King co-created the pickleball group along with Russell, Heather Bauer and Annie Lewis. King, who

is the only female senior-level Small Business Administration (SBA) business development officer in Asheville, understands how important it is to meet with other local women entrepreneurs.

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and so sometimes having the energy to be excited about new things all the time, and new groups of networking is hard,” King says. “But Shawndra makes it easy because she’s really put together an amazing [group].”

King, who lives in Asheville and is originally from Brevard, works for First Commonwealth Bank, based in Ohio. Before meeting Russell, she hadn’t really focused on supporting local business owners, but through the pickleball group and other networking events at Mad Genius Studios, she’s connected with more local women and helped them not only navigate the SBA loan process but also develop new ideas to grow their businesses.

King says it’s important to have spaces like Mad Genius Studios because, in the past, women haven’t had the resources, community and access to capital that men have had. Many real estate and other transactions “take place off the books,” she explains. Opportunities are passed by word-ofmouth even before going on the market. Creating groups like the pickleball club, where women can come together and talk, allows them to make connections, share resources and make referrals.

“We’re not trying to shut men out,” says Russell. “But it’s our time to be

MAKING SPACE: Shawndra Russell is pictured speaking at a September event for women entrepreneurs held at Mad Genius Studios. Photo by Becky Nowak, Arise Images

able to say, ‘Listen, I want to be around like-minded people, and we’re going to help each other rise up.’”

RISK TAKERS CHANGE THE WORLD

April Nash, client intake specialist at Western Women’s Business Center, has made a career out of helping women in business rise. She and Russell first met in February when Russell participated in the Western Women’s Mastermind program — an eight-week cohort of business owners who meet to support each other’s growth. Although the program ended in May, Russell and Nash have continued to collaborate, their relationship shifting from mentor-client to “business besties.”

Nash, who has spoken to over 100 women entrepreneurs over the past year, says there’s one thing she sees again and again in her clients: self-doubt. “They believe in the vision. They believe in the mission. They know it’s important. They know the world needs it, and they just have this self-doubt — ‘I’m not sure I can make this happen’ — even when they have decades of experience in the field,” Nash told Xpress. She says that connecting women to their peers helps them tap into their personal power, take courage and take risks.

“My favorite thing about going to the Mad Genius events is when you walk in, it is so very welcoming,” says Nash. “You are surrounded by powerful women who are slaying at business, and they’re doing so in a way that is grounded. It’s community-oriented. It is collaborative. … You will learn and you will grow just by spending time in this space.”

Nash and Russell both strongly believe helping women in business is the key to creating change within communities and society. In separate interviews, they both point to the statistic, gathered by the International Labour Office in 2018, that women give 90% of their income back to their families and communities while men in business tend to give 30%-40% back.

It’s a statistic that Nash has seen play out in real time in her work at Western Women’s Business Center. She estimates that over 90% of the women she’s worked with have a business plan that involves giving back to or uplifting other people in the community. “Women, in my experience, absolutely see their business as a vehicle to uplift their community, to support their goals in life, to make the world a better place. And oftentimes, the profit motive is secondary,” says Nash.

Russell says wealthier women in business means “healthier families, healthier schools, healthier economies, healthier communities. It’s literally the ripple effect of all ripple effects,” and she’s doing everything she can to support them.

COMING TOGETHER, MOVING FORWARD

Over the past several weeks, as local business owners have grappled with the impacts of Tropical Storm Helene, Russell has mobilized into action and proved that support can take many forms.

Mad Genius Studios survived the storm undamaged. A recent drive down Sweeten Creek Road showed many of her neighbors were not as lucky, with signs of flooding and downed trees still highly visible.

Just days after Helene came through, Mad Genius Studios was back up and running. When cellphone service returned, Russell set up a hot spot for internet access and began gathering resources and sending them out to her community members.

Heather Bauer, CEO of artisan pickle company DJ’s Pickles, says staying connected through group texts and phone calls with Russell, Nash of Western Women’s Business Center and other local entrepreneurs has been critical. “The speed of which we’re hearing things from reliable sources and they’re able to put it into terms that we understand and express such real care and concern has … helped us stay focused, it’s helped us stay motivated, it’s given us hope, and it’s given us a sense that we matter,” she says.

Russell recently expanded her reach to bring hope not just to business owners, but others affected by the storm.

On a Wednesday in late October, Russell and a group of volunteers were unloading the contents of a semitruck parked outside her business. The bounty — clothing, cleaning supplies, personal hygiene products, toiletries, baby items, nonperishable food and case after case of bottled water — had made its way to the WNC mountains from Russell’s hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. When she put word out that her community was in need, her friends and former classmates rallied to gather supplies.

“All I did was be a hype woman,” Russell says, surveying the supplies spread out around her. Her plan was to use Mad Genius as a storage space and hub for organizing volunteers to distribute the goods to Babies Need Bottoms, Goodwill Industries and churches in Swannanoa and East Flat Rock.

In the wake of the storm, Russell has also shifted to add new programming that supports local business owners. Her three-part Co-Creating Our Future series, originally intended to be hosted across three days in October and November, is being reimagined as Women Entrepreneurs and Leaders Week in early December. The event will feature a women-owned expo and holiday market on Friday, Dec. 6, at Mad Genius Studios that will be free and open to the public. Russell also plans to

• • WOMEN IN BUSINESS • •

host panel discussions, a documentary screening, a town hall and happy-hour events inside local businesses.

In the meantime, Russell has added new weekly meetings at Mad Genius Studios, including coffee hours, comedy nights and fireside chats. Every Thursday, 5-8 p.m., women can gather around a firepit, eat warming food and talk specifically about poststorm recovery for the small-business community. She hopes members will brainstorm ways to rally behind each other — whether it be through helping with cleanup, reopening or adapting to a radically altered landscape.

Russell says she’s excited to expand her reach in the coming year and that she’s looking forward to creating new and more varied opportunities for women to collaborate. Hosting more coworking days, leading events in retail shops to boost business and establishing coworking communities in other cities are all on Russell’s to-do list.

“We want to connect and support women, locally, individually, where they feel like they have this hub to feel safe and trust and go to for literally anything they need,” she says. “Supporting women entrepreneurs is my full-blown passion. I’m like, whatever you think’s going to help you, let’s go.”

To learn more about Women Entrepreneurs and Leaders Week and other Mad Genius Studios events, visit avl.mx/e79. X

Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart

Jesse Rosenblum is the owner of Liminal Sōma, a business that strives to reconnect individuals with their bodies through mindfulness-based somatic therapy.

Xpress: What was the path that led you to founding your business?

Rosenblum: I help folks feel safe enough in the here and now to move beyond what keeps them stuck and reach for their best, most authentic lives with Hakomi mindfulness-based somatic therapy. I saw a need to pair my work in nutrition and health with a body-based therapy that explores the root of habits and beliefs we have about ourselves and the world. I noticed a profound shift in my own healing journey when

I tuned into my body; it changed how I relate to myself and others. I want to offer that kind of peace and freedom to others. What’s been the strangest aspect of running a business in Asheville?

I would say it’s strange, in the most wonderful way, that so many people are open to “nontraditional” therapies and healing modalities. I am grateful that folks recognize the word “somatic” and, even if they don’t, they’re curious to learn. I also love how I get to show up fully and legitimately as myself in my business as a queer, nonbinary femme who doesn’t always neatly fit into one category or another. The fact that it is celebrated here, and isn’t a negative thing, is a strangely beautiful thing indeed. How do you define success, and what should every entrepreneur know before launching a business?

Success equals growth, small wins and peace. I’ve learned that entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Owning a business is a spiritual experience that’ll challenge all of your beliefs and sense of self. It’s imperative to mark the little moments when you have a great networking lunch or your very first client books you. And

lastly, there is no success worth having without peace. I want my life to feel spacious and soft, to have time for my loved ones and tending to my own well-being. I’m grateful for my somatic tools, my support team and my own somatic therapist that keep me grounded.

Follow-up question in the aftermath of Helene: How are you doing, and what is the greatest need for local business owners at this moment?

I am heartbroken and more committed than ever to my communities across WNC. This is home. I want to be of service however I can, whether that’s with somatic therapy sessions, interpreting for Spanish-speaking folks or lending my physical strength.

The biggest need for local business owners is capital investment. We have good systems in place from COVID to send money. Buy services/ goods for your people or purchase gift cards. Recommend us to your out-oftown friends! There are some really unique and talented businesses and business owners in WNC, and I hope folks will invest in keeping that reality alive. X

Photo courtesy of Rosenblum

Golden Agers

Finding one’s happy space

BY CAROL KAUFMAN

ckaufman828@gmail.com

Editor’s note: This article was reported and written before Tropical Storm Helene. Asheville Botanical Garden remains closed to visitors, as debris and fallen trees are still being cleared from the paths. For up-to-date information, visit avl.mx/e9h.

In 2013, when Cherie Morris and her husband, Randy Omark, decided they’d had enough of the chilly Pocono Mountain winters, they sold their home and headed south to Asheville to enjoy their retirement.

“We did plenty of research before settling on Asheville, which turned out to be the ideal place for us,” Morris said.

As a garden lover, Morris’ idea of a perfect day is volunteering at the Asheville Botanical Garden Visitor Center, located next to the UNC Asheville campus.

“This has to be the most relaxing place to work,” Morris said. “I get to be at a desk surrounded by 10 acres of native trees, flowers, a flowing creek and winding paths, chatting with visitors. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

Morris started volunteering in 2018, shortly after joining the Asheville Garden Club, which then held its meetings at the garden.

“As a Pennsylvania-trained Master Gardener, I was thrilled to dive back into gardening after moving to Asheville,” she says. “The Garden Club allowed me to connect with other gardening enthusiasts, get my hands in the soil and learn about the need for volunteers.”

With her top-notch people skills developed over 30 years as a flight attendant, along with a background in retail, Morris was a natural fit for the front desk position, which she did for five years. Last year she stepped into the role of art buyer.

“I still help out at the front desk as needed, but my responsibilities have shifted to purchasing art, greeting cards and jewelry,” she says. “With so many artists living in the area, I try to buy local whenever possible.”

When Morris is not volunteering, socializing with neighbors or working on home projects, she’s immersed in her passion for jewelry making — a craft she’s been perfecting for over 50 years. She generously donates her handcraft-

ALL THE SKILLS: As a skilled greeter, jeweler and gardener, Cherie Morris thrives by volunteering at the Asheville Botanical Garden.

by Carol Kaufman

ed jewelry to the Botanical Garden visitor center.

“I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog,” she says. “That’s why I donate my jewelry to this organization that operates on a mere shoestring budget. I want to help out however I can.”

Despite popular belief, Morris emphasizes that Asheville Botanical Garden is not part of UNCA. “With only four paid staff members, it’s an independent nonprofit entirely supported by donations, memberships, sales and volunteers, along with classes offered in its newly renovated classroom.”

Morris admits that there’s no place in Asheville she would rather be volunteering her time.

“This place is surely one of Asheville’s hidden treasures,” she remarks. “Visitors can wander the peaceful grounds every day of the week, from dawn to dusk, free of charge. The only thing is, they have to leave their pooches at home since dogs aren’t allowed on the premises. We want to keep our happy plants happy.” X

Photo

On the house

BY BRAULIO MARTINEZ

Tropical Storm Helene’s destruction has brought overwhelming distress to our tight-knit community, and emotions have been high. But amid all the sorrow, many local organizations and businesses assembled to lend a hand. Groups such as BeLoved Asheville, Pansy Collective, Poder Emma, Colaborativa La Milpa and AVL Survival Program took charge to help people affected by the disaster. Even employees from West Asheville bar the Double Crown jumped in to set up a distribution, or “distro,” site immediately after the storm.

I was fortunate to join Double Crown organizers in their boots-onthe-ground work the first week after Helene hit. During this time, I saw many types of people volunteering, including your everyday barflies and bartenders taking positions of leadership in the efforts.

Volunteers helped with managing the “free store” that distributed supplies to people in need as well as helped with mobile supply runs. Organizers in leadership roles gathered information and mapped out locations that needed water, supplies, medical help or prescriptions filled for individuals.

Though there was no set hierarchy among the Double Crown distro volunteers, they stepped up to easily fill roles wherever they were needed. Besides its genuine community spirit, this distro site had the agility to provide aid without worrying about nonprofit red tape or guidelines that could slow down the process of getting resources to people in need.

Al Peraza, Tess Strickland, Jill Bulmash , Jordan Johnson and Violet Sotomayor are a few of the many organizers and volunteers who helped shape the Double Crown distribution initiative.

Sotomayor sat down with me recently to talk about the project. During my volunteer time in the early stages of the Double Crown’s distro work, I saw her take on many roles, including point person for supply donations and distribution, person of trust to handle Venmo cash donations and a leader people looked to for instructions. She even carried her own clipboard.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Xpress: What was your occupation before Tropical Storm Helene?

West Asheville dive raises the bar for disaster relief

COMMUNITY SPIRITS: Violet Sotomayor is one of a group of Double Crown employees and neighborhood volunteers who led disaster relief efforts from the bar in the weeks following Tropical Storm Helene. Rather than having one leader, everyone worked together to assist community members in need.

Photo by Daniel Barlow

Violet Sotomayor: I was a bartender at Lazy Diamond and Double Crown. Most of the people that helped set up the Double Crown distro were bartenders or door people from local bars — Lazy Diamond, Double Crown, Pink Moon and Strange Magic.

How long have you lived in Asheville?

I’m originally from Richmond, Va., but I have lived in Asheville for two years now. I started frequenting Double Crown and Lazy Diamond, and after a year of enjoying the dive bar community and making friends, they hired me.

How did the Double Crown’s post-Helene distribution work begin?

It took a moment to register how badly Hurricane Helene’s destruction had impacted our area. After realizing that there was no phone service, I drove around and ended up at Double Crown where some of my co-workers were already there assessing the damage to the bar. Eventually, out of necessity, we were able to secure potable water from our friend Jesse Smith, who has a spring in her backyard. It wasn’t long before we

saw that water was a huge necessity for the community and led by Tess Strickland, later dubbed “Wet Dog,” Double Crown was set up as a water distribution site.

What were some of the initial challenges?

In the beginning, all we had was a water cube on the back of a pickup truck that people could fill containers up with water. However, we realized that most people needed containers, and we didn’t have any to spare. Additionally, our distro was a tad disorganized at the beginning, but if a mistake was made, we were able to learn from that and make adjustments the next day.

What kind of community support have you received and what type of support is still needed?

The community has provided a lot of support through volunteering and supplies donations. More importantly, if there was ever a specific need that the distro needed — such as more mobile drivers or even translators — the community was fast to meet that need. Now, even though we have set up a working system

that best helps communities in need, we still need more open communication with other organizations that are doing the same work. There are still people without resources, but if we had a set communication network with these other organizations, we could all be on the same page to provide a joint effort of help.

How did the distro evolve?

It has become very independent. Volunteers are able to manage tasks without any supervision, and people in need who visit our supplies store are able to browse and take whatever they need on their own.

Additionally, Asheville Fire Station 6 [at 970 Haywood Road] was able to connect us with GAP — Grassroots Aid Partnership — who helped source specific supplies for our distro. Ultimately, we opened a line of communication between our two distros to better help the community and, in return, be more organized ourselves.

Which communities have you helped so far?

We have been fortunate enough to help anywhere that we were needed. In reality, we just went where people asked us to come and then asked the people in those neighborhoods where we needed to go next. The list is pretty long now, but we’ve made supply runs to Asheville Terrace, Deaverview, Hillcrest, Livingston, Pisgah View, Ascent Home, Burnsville, Marshall and more. Additionally, there was a very successful supply drop to a Latinx mobile home community, Locust Grove, which led us to make more mobile supply drops in other Latinx communities.

What are you hoping to accomplish with your momentum of support?

I’ve been very inspired by the humanity, heart and character of all of the people who have been willing to help with the Double Crown distro. It’s moments like these that really show you what community means. With that said, we have been discussing taking this momentum and finding sponsorship for a brick-andmortar location where we can continue this service. Unfortunately, Double Crown will have to open at some point, which will leave us without a home base. The organizers at Double Crown and I would like to keep this disaster relief system that we have created in place as we rebuild.

Editor’s note: Since this interview took place, the Double Crown bar has reopened, and the distro has wrapped up its relief operations. The organizers donated the remaining inventory to Hillcrest Community Center. For more details and to donate to the Double Crown, Pink Moon, Strange Magic and Lazy Diamond staff relief fund, visit avl.mx/e8h.  X

NOV. 6 - NOV. 14, 2024

For a full list of community calendar guidelines, please visit mountainx.com/calendar. For questions about free listings, call 828-251-1333, opt. 4. For questions about paid calendar listings, please call 828-251-1333, opt. 1.

 Online-only events

WELLNESS

Tai Chi Fan

This class helps build balance and whole body awareness. All ages and ability levels welcome. Fans will be provided.

WE (11/6, 13), 1pm, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Se 109

Gentle Yoga for Seniors

A yoga class geared to seniors offering gentle stretching and strengthening through accessible yoga poses and modifications.

WE (11/6, 13), 2:30pm, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Tai Chi for Balance

A gentle Tai Chi exercise class to help improve balance, mobility, and quality of life. All ages are welcome.

WE (11/6, 13), 11:30am, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109 Sunday Morning Meditation Group

Gathering for a combination of silent sitting and walking meditation, facilitated by Worth Bodie.

SU (11/10), 10am, Quietude Micro-retreat Center, 1130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Strength & Exercise

Workout at your own pace in a fun atmosphere in this weekly class for active adults working on overall fitness and strength.

MO (11/11), 9:30am, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd

Chen Style Tai Chi

The original style of Tai Chi known for its continual spiraling movements and great health benefits.

TH (11/7, 14), MO (11/11), 1pm, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Qigong for Health

A part of traditional Chinese medicine that involves using exercises to optimize energy within the body, mind and spirit.

FR (11/8), TU (11/12), 9am, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Power Hour Chair

Exercise

Build power through fun, upbeat, and gentle chair

COMMUNITY CALENDAR

JOHN LENNON’S ‘LOST WEEKEND’: BlackBird Frame and Art gallery hosts The Lost Weekend: The Photography of May Pang on Tuesday, Nov. 12, and Wednesday, Nov. 13. Pang herself is scheduled to appear at the showcase, which begins at noon each day and will feature Pang’s candid photos of John Lennon during his infamous “Lost Weekend” era. Photo courtesy of Rock Art Show

exercises each Tuesday.

TU (11/12), 10am, Grove St Community Center, 36 Grove St

SUPPORT GROUPS

Nicotine Anonymous People share their experience, strength and hope to stop using nicotine. You don’t need to be stopped, just have a desire to attend.

TH (11/7, 14), 4:30pm, Asheville 12-Step Recovery Club, 1 Kenilworth Knolls Unit 4

Magnetic Minds: Depression & Bipolar Support Group

A free weekly peer-led meeting for those living with depression, bipolar, and related mental health challenges. For more information contact (828) 367-7660.

SA (11/9), 2pm, 1316 Ste C Parkwood Rd

Wild Souls Authentic Movement Class

A supportive environment for an expressive movement class designed to help you get unstuck, enjoy cardio movement, boost immune health and

more.

SU (11/10), 9:30am, Dunn’s Rock Community Center, 461 Connestee Rd, Brevard

All Souls Counseling Mental Health Monday

Educational Series

In these free mental health education sessions, community members can learn coping skills, how to manage their emotions, how to support others, and how to navigate the difficulties of grief and loss in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

MO (11/11), 2pm, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

DANCE

Latin Night Wednesday w/DJ Mtn Vibez

A Latin dance social featuring salsa, bachata, merengue, cumbia, and reggaeton with dance lessons for all skill levels.

WE (11/6, 13), 8pm, One World Brewing W, 520 Haywood Rd

Ballroom Dance

Learn the basics of ballroom dancing in this drop-in class that works on two different dances

each week including waltz, tango, foxtrot, cha cha, rumba, swing, and salsa.

WE (11/6), 6pm, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave

ART

Beautiful Mystery Exhibition

This exhibition featurescolorful batik paintings by Robin Ford, the clay pieces by Susan Grier and Joe Frank McKee, jewelry by Ilene Kay, and wood sculptures by Brian Melton. Gallery open daily, 10am. Exhibition through Nov. 11. Folk Art Center, MP 382, Blue Ridge Pkwy

James Henkel: Cynosure

Exploring new interpretations of still life photography, Henkel’s images subvert accepted ideas of classical floral art arrangements from both Eastern and Western stylistic perspectives. Gallery open Wednesday through Saturday, 11am. Exhibition through Nov. 9.

Tracey Morgan Gallery, 22 London Rd

At the Table

This exhibition features numerous contemporary works of art from the 1980s to the present that explore ideas of community, power, and representation through their depiction or use of a table. Gallery open Tuesday through Friday, 10am. Exhibition through Dec. 6, 2024.

WCU Bardo Arts Center, 199 Centennial Dr, Cullowhee

The Farm Built on more than a decade’s worth of deep, original archival research, this exhibition will constitute a comprehensive new history of Black Mountain College. Gallery open Tuesday through Saturday, 11am. Exhibition through Jan. 11, 2005.

Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, 120 College St

Queer Craft Circle

After lovingly assembling a corn husk model, the fun will really begin: outfits. Design a look you would love to wear, or maybe the polar opposite.

FR (11/8), 6pm, Firestorm Books, 1022 Haywood Rd

Ginny Ruffner: Reforestation of the Imagination

This exhibition explores an imaginative landscape of plant forms that come to life when activated with augmented reality.

Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through Jan. 20, 2025.

Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Moving Stillness: Mount Rainier

An immersive experience that explores the ideas of death and regeneration in nature. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through Jan. 20, 2025.

SA (11/9), 11am, Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Vessels of Merriment: Opening Reception

This ceramic invitational will kick off with an opening celebration where guests can mix and mingle with some of the participating artists and enjoy complimentary offerings.

SA (11/9), 2pm, Grovewood Gallery, 111 Grovewood Rd

The Lost Weekend: The Photography of May Pang

May Pang, John Lennon’s lover during the Lost Weekend will showcase candid photos of Lennon. May Pang will appear live and works will be available to purchase. See p41 TU (11/12), WE (11/13), noon, BlackBird Frame & Art, 365 Merrimon Ave Daily Craft Demonstrations

Two artists of different media will explain and demonstrate their craft with informative materials displayed at their booths. These free and educational opportunities are open to the public. Open daily, 10am. Demonstrations run through Dec. 31. Folk Art Center, MP 382, Blue Ridge Pkwy

Vessels of Merriment

This annual exhibition will feature handcrafted drinking vessels by 17 potters from across the country. Visitors will be able to browse anything from wine and whiskey cups to flasks, goblets and more. Gallery open Monday through Sunday, 10am. Exhibition through Dec. 31. See p40 Grovewood Gallery, 111 Grovewood Rd

COMMUNITY MUSIC

John Jorgenson Bluegrass Band

Four legendary musicians unite to deliver bluegrass as it’s never been heard before, with impeccable musicianship, incomparable songwriting, incredible harmonies and seasoned showmanship.

TH (11/7), 4pm, Diana Wortham Theatre, 18 Biltmore Ave

Echoes Across the Smokies: A Night of Bluegrass, Ballads & Tall Tales

An unforgettable event celebrating the rich tapestry of mountain culture with a unique blend of bluegrass, folk, and classical influence.

TH (11/7), 7:30pm, WCU Bardo Arts Center, 199 Centennial Dr, Cullowhee Virtuoso Guitarist Raphaël Feuillâtre Experience the extraordinary talent of Raphaël Feuillâtre, a rising star in the world of classical guitar.

TH (11/7), 7:30pm, Parker Concert Hall at Brevard Music Center, 349 Andante Ln, Brevard Orchestrating Hope In the wake of hurricane Helene's devastation, the Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra will present a free concert. Friends, family, and neighbors are all invited to experience this meaningful musical gathering.

SA (11/9), 3pm, Blue Ridge Community College, 180 West Campus Dr, Flat Rock

Brevard Philharmonic

Presents: Tchaikovsky & Rachmaninoff

Peter Tchaikovsky’s powerful and dramatic Marche Slav is followed by his popular and evocative Capriccio italien.

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s famous Piano Concerto No. 2 concludes the program, featuring Zhu Huang, piano.

SU (11/10), 3pm, Porter Center, 1 Brevard College Dr, Brevard Asheville Jazz Orchestra

The AJO’s repertoire ranges from Swing Era dance classics to original charts by band members and other contemporary composers.

SU (11/10), 7:30pm, White Horse Black Mountain, 105C Montreat Rd, Black Mountain Yarn/Wire Performs

Annea Lockwood & Katherine Young

The Yarn/Wire ensemble will perform the second realization of their Fromm Foundation supported project in collaboration with composer Katherine Young, entitled BIOMES 6.1.

TH (11/14), 7pm, Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, 120 College St

COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS

Financial Starters

Experts with United Federal Credit Union are ready to answer questions and design personal plans to help reach personal finance goals.

MO (11/11), 6pm, Dr Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Community Center, 285 Livingston St

So You Bought a Farm, Now What?

This workshop is designed to assist new and aspiring farmers in taking the first steps in thinking through farm start-ups, whether you already have land access or not.

TH (11/7, 14), 2pm, Madison County Cooperative Ext Office, 258 Carolina Ln Marshall

LITERARY

Pen to Paper Writing Group

Share stories of your life with others on the first and third Wednesday of each month.

WE (11/6), 10am, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd

Locally Grown Stories: Picture Book Author Reading

A family-friendly magical hour of fun read-alouds and sharing at this gathering of local authors and illustrators each presenting their latest titles. An informal panel discussion with Q&A will follow.

SU (11/10), 2pm, Firestorm Books, 1022 Haywood Rd

Scott McClanahan: Crapalachia

Scott McClanahan discusses the New Classics Edition re-lease of his book Crapalachia. He'll be joined in conversation by Juliet  Escoria, Author of You Are The Snake. TH (11/14), 6pm, Malaprop's Bookstore and Cafe, 55 Haywood St

THEATER & FILM

The Carole King & James Taylor Story

This show takes you on an incredible journey through the careers of the six-time Grammy Award winner, twenty-time platinum hit maker Carole King, five-time Grammy Award winner, and American folk legend James Taylor.

WE (11/6), 7:30pm, Wortham Center For The Performing Arts, 18 Biltmore Ave

An Evening of Cherokee Storytelling w/Nancy Pheasant

Inspired by her father, Nancy has become a renowned storyteller, dedicated to preserving and sharing the traditions and history of the Anikituwah/Eastern Band of the Cherokee people.

TH (11/7), 7pm, Weaverville Community Center, 60 Lakeshore Dr, Weaverville

Disney's Finding Nemo

Jr.

A 90 minute musical adventure about a clownfish named Marlin who embarks on a daring journey across the ocean to rescue his son, Nemo, with the help of a forgetful yet optimistic fish named Dory.

FR (11/8), SA (11/9), SU (11/10), 2pm, Hart Theatre, 250 Pigeon St, Waynesville

The Mousetrap

A suspenseful mystery set in a remote and snowbound English Manor, where a group of strangers must unravel a murder all while knowing one of them is the killer.

FR (11/8), SA (11/9), SU (11/10), 2pm, Hart Theatre, 250 Pigeon St, Waynesville

Movie Night

Enjoy another 1994 classic movie with a special cocktail menu, popcorn and your favorite movie candy. Pime seating is limited so get here early. MO (11/11), 7:30pm, Eulogy, 10 Buxton Ave

American Ballet Theatre Studio Company

Performing a dynamic blend of favorites, from classical and neoclassical canons to thrilling contemporary works, these vibrant young dancers share all of the talent, artistry and innovation of their parent company counterparts.

TH (11/14), 8pm, Wortham Center For The Performing Arts, 18 Biltmore Avee

MEETINGS & PROGRAMS

So, You Want to Start a Farm…Now What?

This one-half day work shop can help is designed to assist new and aspiring farmers in taking the first steps in thinking through farm start-up (whether you already have land access or not).

TH (11/7), Buncombe County Cooperative Extension Center, 49 Mount Carmel Rd, Ste 102

AgriBusiness Series:

Agri-Tourism

Introductory session to learn about the basic considerations and regulations before you launch your operation.

TH (11/7), Regional High Technolo gy Center, 112 Industrial Park Dr, Waynesville

Kuwohi Talk

At this free event, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians citizens Mary Crowe and Lavita Hill share their journey restoring the Cherokee name of Great Smoky Mountains National Park's highest peak.

TH (11/7), Museum of the Cherokee People, 589 Tsali Blvd., Cherokee

WNC Mountain Strong Career Fair

Various participating employers in industries like advanced manufac turing and health care will interview candidates on site. Open to all area job seekers.

FR (11/8), 10am, Harrah's Cherokee Center, 87 Haywood St

TR After Dark Experience field trips, activities with old friends and make new friends along the way. This month will feature a trip to Retrocade.

FR (11/8), 6pm, Murphy-Oakley Community Center, 749 Fairview Rd

A Night of Storytelling

Come share your favorite stories or let us inspire you with prompts. We might even create a magical, collaborative tale together.

FR (11/8), 7pm, Center for Spiritual Living Asheville, 2 Science Mind Way

Chinese Tea & Tai Chi Foundations

The original style of Tai Chi known for its continual spiraling movements and great health benefits.

SA (11/9), 10:30am, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Walking Tour of Historic Downtown Black Mountain

Learn the history of Black Mountain and the Swannanoa Valley on this walking tour. Museum staff will lead attendees through historic State Street, Cherry Street and Black Mountain Avenue.

SA (11/9), 2pm, Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center, 223 West State St, Black Mountain

Green Sage Cafe-Merrimon, 633A Merrimon Ave Mountain Stitchers

Gather with other makers while you work on knitting, crocheting, stitching, or other personal fiber projects.

WE (11/13), 1pm, Harvest House, 205 Kenilworth Rd

GAMES & CLUBS

Bridge for Fun

A bridge game night for mid-level players, not for beginners. Contact Tom Fehsenfeld at tom. fehsenfeld@gmail.com.

WE (11/6, 13), 2pm, N Asheville Recreation Center, 37 E. Larchmont Rd

Southside Family Game Night

Enjoy popular board and card games with friends, your family or by yourself. Games are provided, but feel free to bring your own share.

FR (11/8), 6pm, Dr Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Community Center, 285 Livingston St

Weekly Sunday Scrabble Weekly scrabble play where you’ll be paired with players of your skill level. All scrabble gear provided.

SU (11/10), 1:30pm, Stephens Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave

In 2013, I founded Skin Spa Asheville, starting with a single treatment room shared with a massage therapist. Since then, the spa has expanded to six beautifully designed suites within the Haywood Park Hotel Complex, employing a team of 17 talented professionals prior to the recent hurricane.

I am sincerely grateful for the unwavering commitment and hard work that has gone into restoring our infrastructure, enabling us to reopen our doors to the community we cherish. Our compassionate team is committed to helping clients achieve wellness and regain a sense of normalcy in these challenging times. We also have a gift shop in the hotel, showcasing products from local and women-owned businesses and now carry the awardwinning Eminence Organic Skincare line. Additionally, we offer gift cards for those wishing to treat loved ones to spa services, sharing the gift of relaxation and self-care.

We’re grateful to continue offering exceptional spa services in Asheville for many more years. Enjoy 30% off all full price services in November —just mention this ad at check-out or use the promo code MNTX30 when booking! Your relaxation and well-being are our top priorities, and we can’t wait to treat you once again.

Melissa Markis owner of Skin Spa

Asheville’s Top Pelvic Health Specialists!

Dr. Susie Gronski & Team provides specialized, comprehensive pelvic health care both in Asheville, NC, and online. Their multidisciplinary team blends pelvic floor therapy, sex counseling, mental health support, and nutrition therapy to address a wide spectrum of bladder, bowel, and sexual health concerns. Grounded in evidence-informed care, we collaborate with you to achieve your pelvic and sexual health goals, ensuring you feel seen, valued, and heard with our compassionate approach.

COMMUNITY CALENDAR

A Night of Dungeons & Dragons

Get matched up for a fiery, heroic evening filled of enthralling stories led by the best. Come solo, bring your friends or bring your gaming foes. MO (11/11), 6pm, Urban Orchard Cider Co. South Slope, 24 Buxton Ave

KID-FRIENDLY PROGRAMS

Parks & REC-cess

A recreation experience for kids and teens who are homeschooled with a variety of activities. Advance registration required.

WE (11/6), 1pm, Linwood Crump Shiloh Community Center, 121 Shiloh Rd

Kids & Teens Kung Fu

Learn fighting skills as well as conflict resolution and mindfulness. First class is free to see if it’s a good fit for you.

TH (11/7, 14), MO (11/11), TU (11/12), 4pm, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Storytime

Fun and engaging activities for toddlers. Grab a coffee while your kids engage.

FR (11/8), 10am, Peri Social House, 406 W State St, Black Mountain

Kids Night In

Let your child work off extra energy with a fun-filled night of themed games, crafts, special activities, and a light dinner.

FR (11/8), 6pm, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave

Coloring w/Cats: Kiddie Edition

Release your inner child by coloring with us in the cat lounge while you relieve stress and anxiety.

SA (11/9), 1:30pm, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd,

LOCAL MARKETS

Leicester Farmers Market

A community-led farmers market local produce, cheese, meats and crafts, every Wednesday. WE (11/6), 3pm, Leicester Community Center, 2979 New Leicester Hwy, Leicester Weaverville Tailgate Market

A selection of fresh, locally grown produce, grass fed beef, pork, chicken, rabbit, eggs, cheese, sweet and savory baked goods, artisan bread, body care, eclectic handmade goodies, garden and landscaping plants. Open year round. WE (11/6, 13), 3pm, 60 Lake Shore Dr Weaverville East Asheville Tailgate Market

Featuring locally grown vegetables, fruits, wild

foraged mushrooms, ready made food, handmade body care, bread, pastries, meat, eggs, and more to the East Asheville community since 2007. Every Friday through Nov. 22.

FR (11/8), 3pm, 954 Tunnel Rd

Asheville City Market

Featuring local food products, including fresh produce, meat, cheese, bread, pastries, and other artisan products. Every Saturday through December 21.

SA (11/9), 9am, 52 N Market St

Black Mountain Saturday Tailgate Market

Featuring organic and sustainably grown produce, plants, cut flowers, herbs, locally raised meats, seafood, breads, pastries, cheeses, eggs and locally handcrafted items.

SA (11/9), 9am, 130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

WNC Farmers Market

High quality fruits and vegetables, mountain crafts, jams, jellies, preserves, sourwood honey, and other farm fresh items. Open daily 8am, year-round. 570 Brevard Rd

Junk-O-Rama

Browse vintage clothing vendors, local crafters, antiques and more.

SU (11/10), 11am, Fleetwood's, 496 Haywood Rd

West Asheville Tailgate Market

Featuring an array of goods including fruits, vegetables, baked goods, bread, eggs, cheese, milk, poultry, and fish to locally made specialty items such as natural beauty products, herbal medicine and locally made art and crafts. Every Tuesday through November 26.

TU (11/12), 3:30pm, 718 Haywood Rd

FESTIVALS & SPECIAL EVENTS

Smiley's Flea Market

40th Anniversary

Celebrate Smiley’s 40th anniversary with live music, free amusement rides, face painting, balloon twisting, giveaways and a chance to Win Up to $10,000. Tickets for the drawing will be given out every Saturday and Sunday at the Smiley’s office.

SA (11/9), 9am, Smiley's Flea Market, 5360 Hendersonville Rd, Fletcher RADFest Soft Opening

A special two-day celebration marking the first steps in the beloved arts community’s recovery following Hurricane Helene. The festival will feature pop-up booths showcasing works from displaced artists, food vendors, live demonstrations and music.

SA (11/9), SU (11/10), noon, River Arts District

Cold Mountain Winter Ale Release Weekend

A cherished tradition, will continue this year. While things may look a little different, we’re ready to celebrate our community with a local-only lineup of musicians and performing artists and a special beer release.

SU (11/10), noon, Highland Brewing Co., 12 Old Charlotte Hwy, Ste 200

Knuckle Deep BBQ Fest 16 barbecue teams will be cooking. No competition this year — instead, they’ll be raising money for relief efforts. Donations will benefit Resources for Resilience and Holiday Wishes for Foster Youth, plus local businesses. See p40 SU (11/10), noon, The Mule, 131 Sweeten Creek Rd

Write Local, Read Local Author & Illustrator Fair

Meet local authors and illustrators at the third annual Write Local, Read Local Fair. Authors will be selling and signing copies of their work throughout the library and author readings will occur during the afternoon.

SU (11/10), 1pm, Black Mountain Library, Black Mountain

BENEFITS & VOLUNTEERING

Karen Cragnolin Park

Volunteer Day

Karen Cragnolin Park’s greenway is now open to the public, but our work doesn’t stop there. Our work continues to beautify and create a native habitat for the public and pollinators to enjoy.

WE (11/6), 10am, Karen Cragnolin Park, 190 Amboy Rd

AMS Silent Auction

A fun-filled event where you can bid on a wide variety of amazing items, all while supporting a great cause. Whether you're a seasoned auction-goer or a first-timer, this event is perfect for everyone.

TH (11/7), 6:30pm, Marquee Asheville, 36 Foundy St

Montreat Music White Horse Benefit Show

An evening featuring Montreat College Rock & Jazz Bands, Folk String Band and Bucket Drummers. All proceeds go to support the White Horse Black Mountain.

TH (11/7), 7:30pm, White Horse Black Mountain, 105C Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Hurricane Helene Benefit Concert

Leeda Lyric Jones, will perform a benefit concert for Hurricane Helene victims at Skyland UMC. Proceeds raised will go directly back to the local people affected by the storm.

SA (11/9), 6:30pm, Skyland United Methodist Church, 1984 Hendersonville Rd

Cornhole Tournament Play cornhole for a cause at White Horse. All entry fees & donations benefit Owen Babe Ruth League to aid in rebuilding the fields at Veteran’s Park. SU (11/10), 12:30pm, White Horse Black Mountain, 105C Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Pickin for Pisgah A benefit concert featuring the Pisgah Pickers that hopes to bring together music lovers for a night of bluegrass and community support, with all proceeds benefiting the FIND Outdoors  Hurricane Helene Relief Fund.

SU (11/10), 5pm, The Cradle of Forestry, 11250 Pisgah Hwy, Pisgah Forest Comedy for Community Benefiting Marshall

This comedy for community brings all your favorite local comedians together each week to support the towns we love through a variety of local charities and organizations. This month we are supporting the town of Marshall.

SU (11/10), 6:30pm, Catawba Brewing Co. S Slope Asheville, 32 Banks Ave

The Blood Connection Blood Drive

A blood drive hosted by The Blood Connection. Visit avl.mx/dhxto and use code 1189 to schedule an appointment ahead of time. Donors will receive a $20 e-gift card and a bonus $30 e-gift card as well $50 in rewards total.

TU (11/12), 8am, Highland Brewing Co., 12 Old Charlotte Hwy, Ste 200 Free Community Support & Dinner We will be gathering with NAMI, SeekHealing, & Jewish Family Services to share a meal and hope and to begin to heal from our community's recent challenges. There will be peer facilitators and resources available.

TU (11/12), 5pm, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave Oakley Community Closet

A cost-free opportunity to shop clothes, shoes, and toys. Donations for Oakley Community Closet happily accepted at Murphy-Oakley Community Center throughout the week. WE (11/13), 1pm, Murphy-Oakley Community Center, 749 Fairview Rd Southside Volunteer Day Volunteer with RiverLink to maintain the native ecosystem and rain gardens in the Erskine Community. TH (11/14), 10am, Herb Watts Park, 64 Erskine St

SUPPLIES DISTRIBUTION & INTAKE LOCATIONS

Beloved Asheville

Donations are accepted. Open Tuesday through Saturday, 11am. Days and hours may vary.

32 Old Charlotte Hwy

At Home Store

Food, drinknig water and water for flushing available.

Open 9am to 7pm.

980 Brevard Rd

Sky Lanes Bowling

Alley

Food, drinking water and water for flushing available. Open daily, 9am to 7pm.

1477 Patton Ave

Swannanoa Ingles

Food, drinking water and water for flushing available. Open daily, 7am to 7pm.

2299 US 70, Swannanoa

Poder Emma: El Mercadito

Providing food, diapers, water, first level medications and clothing. Open Wednesday through Friday, 1pm and Sunday, 12pm.

477 N. Louisiana Ave

Linwood Crump

Shiloh Community Center

MREs, food and bottled water are available. One case of water per family.

Open 9am to 7pm.

121 Shiloh Rd

Pack Square Park

Bring your own water container. 2 gallons per person/day.

70 Court Plaza

12 Baskets Cafe

Food distribution and supplies intake. Open daily, 10am.

610 Haywood Rd

The Fresh Market Distributing free bottled water.

944 Merrimon Ave

Rosettas

Free soup kitchen for the public.

68 N Lexington Ave

Harrah’s Cherokee Center

Front door is accepting small donations, 9am to 5pm.

87 Haywood St

Black Mountain

Ingles

Buncombe County is distributing food, water, and supplies that will be available from noon until 4 p.m.

550 NC-9, Black Mountain, 28711

Cane Middle Creek

Middle

Buncombe County is distributing food, water, and supplies that will be available

from noon until 4 p.m.

570 Lower Brush Creek Road, Fletcher

Woodland Baptist Church

Supplies available Monday through Friday, 8am. Donations

accepted Saturday, 9am and Sunday, 2pm.

545 Crabtree Rd, Waynesville

Reynolds Baptist Church

Supplies are available for pickup and distribution. Open daily, 9am.

520 Rose Hill Rd

Asheville YMCA

Distributing essential relief items to the public. Open daily, 10am.

30 Woodfin St, Asheville

Laurel Community Center

Distributing food, water and supplies.

4100 NC 212 Hwy, Marshall

Center Community Center

Food, supplies and water available. Open daily, 8am.

1300 Grapevine Rd, Marshall

Ebbs Chapel Community Center

Food, supplies and water available. Days and hours vary.

281 Laurel Valley

Tranzmission Food Pantry

Food items, non-food supplies and water. Thursday through Saturday, 4pm.

Direct Message via Instagram for address.

Bounty and Soul

Latino

Food and supplies in Swannanoa. Open at 1pm.

216 Whitson Ave, Swannanoa

Bee Tree

Food and supplies in Swannanoa. Open at 2:30pm.

372 Tree Rd, Swannanoa

East Haven

Food and supplies in Swannanoa. Open at 4:45pm.

2244 US-70, Swannanoa

PUBLIC SHOWER & LAUNDRY LOCATIONS

Alpha Fitness Open to non-members for showers.

HELENE RESOURCE DIRECTORY

AG Center Hot showers open to the public. Bring your own towel and shower products.

765 Boylston Hwy, Fletcher

At Home Store

Showers, laundry and bathrooms available on their parking lot. 9880 Brevard Rd

Buncombe County

Sports Park

Hot showers and bathrooms open to the public. Open daily, 7am to 7pm. 58 Apac Dr

Big Lots/Innsbrook Mall

Hot showers, laundry and bathrooms open to the public. Open daily, 7am to 7pm. 85 Tunnel Rd

Bethel United Methodist Hot showers, laundry and bathrooms open to the public. Open daily, 7am to 7pm. 1050 Riceville Rd

Weaverville Laundromat

Open 24 hours. Coin only.

1 Central Ave

J & D Laundromat ATM on site. Days vary, open 7am. 1899 Brevard Rd, Arden

Express Laundry

Open daily, 6am. 5838 Asheville Hwy, Hendersonville

Camp Grier

Open daily, 10am and 4pm.

985 Camp Grier Rd, Old Fort

First Baptist Church Check for hours and times.

63 N Main St, Weaverville

Ingles Black Mountain Hours and times vary. 550 NC-9

Reuter Family Branch YMCA

Open daily, 10am. 3 Town Square Blvd

Walmart Supercenter: Arden Free showers and laundry services. Open daily, 7am. 60 Airport Rd

West Asheville

Truist Bank Free mobile showers, laundry facilities and bathrooms. Bring your own towel and flip flops. Open daily, 11am. 1343 Parkwood Rd

Walmart Supercenter: Weaverville

Free showers and laundry services. Open daily, 7am. 25 Northridge Commons Pkwy

Trinity Baptist Church Hot showers and a mobile laundry service on campus. Open daily, 10am. 216 Shelburne Rd

Corpening Memorial YMCA

Free public showers with WiFi and charging. Open daily, 2pm.

348 Grace Corpening Dr, Marion

Maple Ridge Baptist Church

Public showers, laundry and bathrooms. Open Monday through Wednesday, 10am.

133 Medford Branch Rd, Candler

Ingles: Swannanoa Hot showers. Open daily, 7am. 2299 US-70, Swannanoa

HOT MEALS

Ben’s Tune Up Free meals from World Central Kitchen.

Open daily, 12pm.

195 Hilliard Ave

Gashes Creekek

Baptist

Free hot dinner. Open daily, 4pm to 6pm.

308 Gashes Creek Rd

Valley Hope EPC

Free hot dinner. Open daily, 5:30pm to 7pm.

115 Rockdale Ave

Blunt Pretzels

Free hot meals and water supplies. Open daily, 12:30pm to 8pm.

120 Alexander Pl

Dilbar

Free hot meals. Open daily, 12:30pm to 4:30pm.

5 Biltmore Ave

Redeemer American Church

Mercy Chefs serving hot meals. Dinner at 5pm.

531 Haywood Rd

First Baptist Church

Mercy Chefs serving hot meals. Lunch at 12pm and Dinner at 5pm.

5 Oak St

Bolen’s Creek Baptist Church

Greenhill Store

Open daily, 12pm. 2751 US Hwy, 64/74A, Rutherfordton

West Asheville

Ingles

Open daily, 3pm. 669 Haywood Rd

Tryon Equestrian Center

Open daily, 12pm. 4066 Pea Ridge Rd, Mill Spring

Roseland Community Center

Open daily, 12pm. 56 Peake St, Tryon

Wesley Grant Community Center

Open daily, 12pm. 285 Livingston St.

Black Mountain

Ingles

Open daily, 12pm. 550 NC-9, Black Mountain

Shiloh Community Center

Open daily 12pm. 121 Shiloh Rd

Grovemont Park

Open daily, 12pm. 251 Stonewall Ave, Swannonoa

Jukebox Junction

Open daily, 12pm. 3606 Pigeon Rd, Canton

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

World Central Kitchen

Still needs volunteers to help with cooking and other misc tasks. Register at avl.mx/e7u.

West Yancey Fire

Department

Volunteers are needed to help organize their distribution center and help folks with supply distribution. Come out as early as 8:30am. 6557 US-19, Burnsville

United Way of Asheville Buncombe

Find volunteer opportunities via avl.mx/e7x

ABBCM Warehouse Volunteers are needed to help unload trucks, sort donations and assist with distributions of supplies. Monday through Friday, 9am. Contact (828) 2595300 for more info. 1845 Brevard Rd

hood. Must wear Personal Protective Equipment, boots and sling sleeves/ pants. Daily cleanup, 9:30am.

220 Amboy Rd

St. James Church Volunteers are needed to help with on-site supply distribution, starting at 1pm.

44 Hildebrand St

Given Estates

Seeking volunteers to ensure residents’ safety and well-being. To learn more or sign up, call us at (828) 274-4800 or email: heleneinfo@ givensestates.org.

2360 Sweeten Creek Rd

Beloved Asheville Help sort/organize goods, deliver supplies, and other miscellaneous work. Daily, 9:30am.

32 Old Charlotte Hwy

BUSINESS RE-OPENINGS

Grove Arcade

Retail shopping center and historic landmark has re-opened. Open daily, 10am.

1 Page Ave

Foggy Mountain Brew Pump Vibrant taproom dishing out pub grub. 12 Church St

Asheville Music Hall Live music venue with local and touriung acts.

31 patton Ave

Posana Restaurant Contemporary Americana cuisine featuring local ingredients. Open Wednesday through Sunday, noon.

1 Biltmore Ave

Pink Dog Creative Soft opening of colorful converted warehouse gallery. Open Monday through Saturday, 10am and Sunday, 12pm.

348 Depot St

Asheville Museum of Science Open for normal business hours. Monday through Saturday, 10am, closed on Sunday.

43 Patton Ave

avl.mx/e83 to see movie options and times.

1640 Hendersonville Rd

Voodoo Brewing Brewery and their food options return.

3578 Sweeten Creek Rd, Arden

Highland Brewing Co.

Craft brewery and their live music returns.

12 Old Charlotte Hwy, Ste 200

The Village Porch Re-opening with a limited menu.

51 N Merrimon Ave

The Barksdale Hot dogs and cocktails are back. Open daily, 1pm to 11pm till curfew is lifted.

42 Banks Ave

Shakey’s

Popular queer bar reopens. Open daily, 4pm to 10pm till curfew is lifted.

38 N French Broad Ave

Sly Grog Lounge

Asheville’s weirdest indoor-outdoor event space returns. Hours and shows vary.

271 Haywood St

Sierra Nevada Brewery and amphitheater re-open.

Open daily, 11am.

100 Sierra Nevada Way, Fletcher

Old Europe Pastries Old-world coffee shop is open.

18 Broadway St

Shiloh & Gaines

Friendly neighborhood bar has opened its doors.

700 Hendersonville Rd

The Orange Peel Visit avl.mx/e8a for shows and times.

101 Biltmore Ave

Lazoom Room

Regular bar hours will be Tuesday through Saturday, 3pm to 9pm until further notice.

76 Biltmore Ave

Rankin Vault

Relaxed bar knowng for craft cock-tails and food.

7 Rankin Ave

Mellow Mushroom Funky, art-filled chain pizzeria

50 Broadway St

Botiwalla: Downtown

Indian street-food eatery. Open daily, 11:30am.

697 Haywood Rd

Well Played Board games and a limited menu of sandwiches, snacks and desserts. Open Thursday through Sunday, 9am.

162 Coxe Ave

The River Arts District Brewing Company Brewery, live music and food on site.

13 Mystery St

The Whale: A Craft Beer Collective Craft brewery reopens.

507 Haywood Rd, St 10

Jettie Raes

Walk-ins only with a limited menu. Open, 5pm.

143 Charlotte St

Vinnie’s

Enjoy a limited menu. Open, 4pm.

641 Merrimon Ave

Dssolvr

Will be open Thursday through Sunday, 3pm.

63 N Lexington Ave

West Asheville Yoga

Open Monday through Friday, 9am, 10:30am and 5:30pm. Saturday and Sunday, 10am.

602 Haywood Rd

Eulogy

Live music returns. Visit avl.mx/d47 for shows and times. 10 Buxton Ave

Oklawaha Brewing Co.

Brewery and live music returns.

147 1st Ave E, Hendersonville

Do you run a business in a local town outside of Asheville?

Advertise in Xpress’ once-a-month recurring feature!

Days vary, 9am. 2570 Asheville Hwy

Walmart Supercenter: Asheville Free showers and laundry services. Open daily, 7am. 1636 Hendersonville Rd

Mercy Chefs serving hot meals. Lunch at 12pm.

19 Heavenly Ln

The Rock Church

Mercy Chefs serving hot meals. Dinner at 5pm.

273 Monte Vista Dr

All Hands & Hearts Looking for volunteers to help with debris removal and muck assistance. They will be operating for months. Contact (828) 712-6928.

Carrier Park Cleanup Effort Neighbors coming together to clean up their neighbor -

The Grey Eagle Live music returns to The Grey Eagle. 185 Clingman Ave One World West Live music returns to One World West. 520 Haywood Rd

Cinemark Bistro at The Carolina Asheville Movie theater returns. Visit

Community-level intervention

Health professionals help residents unpack feelings of dread and uncertainty post-Helene

BY BROOKE RANDLE

In the immediate aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene, many Western North Carolina residents began surveying the destruction of homes and businesses and scrambling to ensure neighbors and family members were OK.

And while the floodwaters have receded and cleanup efforts have begun, mental health professionals know that the impacts of witnessing or experiencing natural disasters can linger, causing people to feel disoriented or at a loss of what to do or how to help themselves or others.

Crystal Nero, a licensed clinical mental health counselor who owns Mending Roots Healing Center in West Asheville, says that the psychological toll of natural disasters such as Helene can manifest in a myriad of ways and effects can last long after the traumatizing event.

“I think [mental health] is the forgotten aspect of a disaster,” says Nero, who has worked as a counselor for 10 years. “It is easy to get boots on the ground and to know that we have to move trees or debris. But it’s another thing to know that everyone has been impacted and is suffering and actually how to help with that suffering.”

WNC residents today may be experiencing a range of emotions and mental health conditions, such as survivor’s guilt, anxiety, overwhelm or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), says Nero. But, she adds, they don’t have to experience these emotions alone.

Nero is one of hundreds of area mental health providers, bodywork-

ers, acupuncturists and more who are offering free or discounted services and support groups to community members, volunteers and emergency service workers impacted by Helene.

“As we come out of the shock phase — we’re still uncovering what exists and what doesn’t exist — but after that, people may begin to slip into grief. One thing I know about grief is it can become isolating,” says Nero. “And so when we heal collectively, we have better opportunities to manage things like PTSD.”

MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID

Following any traumatic event, Nero says that people may experi-

ence a sense of dread or uncertainty. Some people may also find it difficult to concentrate or make decisions.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Nero and several other therapists employed at her practice created a pop-up site outside their office in West Asheville to offer free mental health counseling. Ethan Chandler, a clinical social worker and addiction specialist who works as a therapist at the clinic, was among the organizers and therapists providing what he calls mental health first aid.

“Mental health first aid is like a community-level intervention of recognizing like the signs or the symptoms that someone might be

developing a mental health issue that could develop into something really serious. Sometimes it’s addressing when someone is actively in a crisis, helping to get them support where they can be the safest,” says Chandler. “It’s pretty practical, it’s pretty brief, compared with regular therapy sessions.”

Chandler says that on the busiest day of the pop-up, volunteer therapists from the clinic saw about 12 people, many of whom were experiencing conflicting emotions such as gratitude, frustration, anger and guilt. Others, he says, simply needed to share their experience with an empathetic presence.

“Something that really stuck out for me was that there were some people who seemed like they needed someone to bear witness with them in their grief, rather than try to make their grief go away or try to make their grief different,” says Chandler. “They just needed somebody there to understand that they were grieving and offer an ear to listen.”

While she is no longer operating the pop-up, Nero says that her practice now offers a six-week drop-in support group for anyone needing mental health support or interested in being with other community members. The group meets 5:30-7 p.m. Mondays at 577 Haywood Road in West Asheville.

“It’s just one more way that we can offer support right now,” says Nero. “You can come to one, or you can come to all of them. We will share some skills and also offer some connective time to share and process some of the grief that’s happening for all of us.”

MENTAL MEDICINE: Licensed counselor Ethan Chandler was one of several therapists providing free counseling services to WNC residents in the aftermath of Helene. Photo by Chandler

MIND-BODY CONNECTION

Trauma, anxiety and PTSD can also manifest in the body, says Arash Bains, who owns a bodywork studio in downtown Asheville. He and his co-founder, Myan Armbruster, a massage therapist, say that massage and bodywork can help improve mood, alleviate stress and help soothe people’s nervous systems as they process disaster-related trauma.

“Massage and bodywork are caring about the whole person and their nervous system and focusing mental, spiritual, emotional, state, not just their physical state,” says Armbruster.

Bains and Armbruster are among hundreds of massage therapists offering discounted bodywork services for WNC residents, along with free massage for emergency service workers. So far, Bains and Armbruster have given 30 emergency workers complimentary massages.

“In the early days after the storm, you see all of these ambulances going 24/7. You see firefighters, these line workers, and you know they’re working tirelessly. You know they’re not getting any sleep,” says Bains. “And that kind of service for us as a community, for us who don’t have those abilities or don’t work in those fields, like we are indebted to those people. And so it was just a natural thing for us to do.”

Bains adds that for those experiencing anxiety or fear about losing work or housing, counting on friends, family and others in the community can help reduce isolation.

“Coming from my personal journey here, I got so stressed about the business, about my personal life, about the community. It was so hard to see this place where I’ve spent so much time falling in love with and connected to be destroyed like it is,” Bains explains. “I’ve learned that the No. 1 thing has been really leaning on other people — leaning on my friends, family and just anyone in the commu-

nity. Now is the time to be kind and to really show up for each other.”

HELPING THE HELPERS

The desire to help Helene volunteers and emergency workers avoid storm-related burnout is what motivates Andrew Nugent-Head Nugent-Head founded the nonprofit Association for Traditional Studies and works as the chief practitioner at the Alternative Clinic, which uses herbs, acupuncture and other Eastern medicines to treat patients.

The clinic has offered pro bono work for police and firefighters since its inception but ramped up its efforts to also help volunteers since Helene.

“As a nonprofit clinic, we have been doing nonprofit and pro bono work for 30 years,” says NugentHead. “Our mission has always been to help as many people as possible and to be as affordable as possible, given the costs of living in Asheville.”

When World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit that provides food relief worldwide, set up next door to the Alternative Clinic in downtown Asheville, Nugent-Head knew exactly what he needed to do.

“What people don’t realize is that these [World Central Kitchen volunteers] are committed to their mission. They’re there at 6 in the morning, and their day ends at 9 p.m. They wake up, and they do it all over again,” he explains.

He says that the clinic has provided $16,000 in treatments for volunteers and plans to continue offering pro bono work for police and firefighters and lower-cost services for the community at large.

“One of the volunteers said it best: ‘By week three, we are usually tired, injured, grumpy, short-tempered,’” says Nugent-Head. “But now, a lot of them are discovering that they’re going to leave Asheville healthier because they came.” X

Lunch & Learn

KNOWLEDGE IS ON THE MENU THURSDAY, NOV. 21ST FROM 11-1 PM

Rethinking retirement has never been easier. Come enjoy a presentation about Givens Gerber Park: a more affordable rental retirement option (55+) and enjoy lunch on us. Monthly fees are all-inclusive based on income. RSVP required.

ARTS & CULTURE

From scratch

BY GINA SMITH

Flooded before opening day, much-anticipated RAD restaurants seek high ground gsmith@mountainx.com

On a warm afternoon, nearly a month after Tropical Storm Helene engulfed much of Western North Carolina in floodwaters, Katie Grabach and Peyton Barrell are standing amid clouds of swirling, brown dust near the Foundy Street spot where their brick-and-mortar dream used to be.

Part of the wooden railing they had just installed for the deck of their then-soon-to-open French rotisserie and wine restaurant, Gourmand, is still oddly in its place. But the tiny building itself, a box of just over 600 square feet, detached from its foundations in the 24-foot deluge and floated over the surrounding walkway to rest haphazardly against nearby Wedge Brewing Co.’s brick structure during the Sept. 27 flooding.

As Grabach and Barrell watch, crews with heavy machinery test the building to see if it can be moved back

NonprofitIssue

to its foundation. “If it had not hit the Wedge and got stuck between it and that telephone pole, it would probably be in Marshall,” says Barrell. “In some ways, we were very lucky.”

One takeaway from Helene seems to be that luck is relative. Among the countless businesses completely washed away or suffering varying degrees of crippling damage were a number of infant enterprises poised to debut amid the bustle of a typical Western North Carolina leaf season.

Three of those were keenly anticipated, women-led restaurants, including Gourmand, originally set to open this month in the River Arts District (RAD). But now, all three eateries are, at least for the moment, stranded.

‘FLOATED AWAY’

This is not the first tangle with unforeseen calamity for Grabach and Barrell. The pair were working in restaurants in New York City — Grabach in events at the New York Marriott Marquis and Barrell with a French restaurant in Tribeca — when COVID-19 shut the industry down.

They relocated in 2020 to New Orleans, where they opened Gourmand as a charcuterie business operating out of their home. In August 2021, Hurricane Ida made landfall in New Orleans, ultimately shuttering Gourmand when the city’s economy shifted in the wake of the storm.

The couple then moved to Asheville and relaunched Gourmand as a wine and charcuterie shop in the S&W Market downtown. They closed it in October 2023 to focus on the buildout of their RAD wine bar and French rotisserie concept, which they planned to open early this month.

Xpress’ special issue focuses on the trends, triumphs and challenges of local nonprofits, making it an ideal platform to promote your mission and share your contributions with the community!

Grabach and Barrell were at a friend’s wedding in New Orleans on Sept. 27 when the worst of the flooding hit the RAD. They watched on their phones via a video from a friend as their restaurant, in the final stages of renovation and due to open Nov. 7, filled with water, disconnected from its foundation and swirled away.

In addition to the relative good fortune of the building snagging on Wedge’s corner, the couple count themselves lucky that they hadn’t yet hired a full staff when the disaster happened. They also note that about $120,000 worth of their kitchen equipment was due to be delivered the following week, and they were able to cancel those orders.

But the loss is still crushing — nearly $300,000, including the buildout plus about $40,000 of equipment and supplies in a storeroom on Riverside Drive that also flooded.

“Ida was very punishing, but in comparison to now, we didn’t lose that much money; we recouped those losses over like a year of hard work,” says Barrel. “But this is a different scale. We basically bought a house with a four-year mortgage, and it floated away.”

GRANTS, NOT LOANS

Just up the hill at 375 Depot St., restaurateurs Suzy Phillips and Dave

Campbell are also struggling to pick up the now-dusty pieces of what’s left of their nascent eatery, Black Cat Sandwich Co. Originally slated to open this month, the Black Cat space still stands, though muddy water saturated the fully furnished, equipped and stocked dining room and kitchen up to a height of at least 6 feet. The contents of the restaurant — from the $5,000 espresso machine down to the food in the refrigerator — were lost to the water. By the time Xpress visited in late October, the entire interior of the building — which also housed Trackside Studios and other businesses — had been stripped down to the studs and floor

BEFORE AND AFTER: The top photo shows Black Cat Sandwich Co. set to open before Tropical Storm Helene. In the bottom photo, co-owners Dave Campbell, left, and Suzy Phillips visit the space after the flood in late October. Top photo courtesy of Phillips; bottom photo by Gina Smith

joists below the watermark. On a wall in the dining room area, just one eye and ear from a black cat mural by artist Hannah Dansie peek out at the empty room.

Phillips, who is also working amid the water outage to reopen her other two restaurants — Gypsy Queen Cuisine and Simple Cafe & Juice Bar — estimates that the losses from Black Cat total around $75,000, much of which was borrowed against her longtime investment in Gypsy Queen Cuisine.

“I’m not a rich person; this was my investment,” she says. “And the hard part of digesting this is that we’re getting no aid. The only thing that’s being offered to us as a small business is a low-interest loan. … I’m stubborn and resilient, yes. But, man, a part of our hearts has been ripped to shreds.”

She says the disaster loans she and Campbell are aware of offer zero interest for the first 12 months, then low interest thereafter. But any type of loan, she says, just puts small businesses — especially those not yet opened — deeper in debt.

“If anybody is listening out there that has any influence or power or voice, we don’t need loans. We need grants,” she says. “We need assistance like we had during COVID. I know this is not a nationwide thing, but this is a historical catastrophe, from Florida all the way up here.”

With liability insurance but no flood insurance and the fate of their structure still literally hanging in limbo, Grabach and Barrell are unsure how and on what timeline Gourmand will continue — though they’re determined that it will. “We have faith that we’ll get grants and FEMA money,” says Barrell.

Grabach agrees, but as the operations person for the business, she expresses frustration. “I’ve applied for countless things, literally everything. I’ve been on the phone with FEMA for hours and hours, and we haven’t really gotten anywhere yet as far as funding,” she says. “I have hopes, I would say, but so far we haven’t gotten a response from anyone.”

SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Phillips and Campbell express deep appreciation for their building’s owner, Sam Hellman, who they say entered the building when it started flooding to rescue some of his tenants’ artwork and has been working hard on cleanup efforts. Likewise, the Gourmand owners say they have nothing but gratitude and “total positivity” toward the support their landlord, Dewey Property Advisors, has provided.

HIGH AND DRY: Gourmand owners Katie Grabach, left, and Peyton Barrell are pictured in front of their building, which floated off its foundation when the River Arts District flooded. Gourmand was originally set to open Nov. 7.

Photo by Gina Smith

Across the street from Black Cat, pastry chefs Dana Amromin and Beth Kellerhals, co-owners of notyet-open ButterPunk bakery and coffee shop, share similar warm feelings about the support from their landlord, Jared Kay

“You know, we had some panicked conversations right after it happened, but as the dust has settled — no pun intended — we’ve been able to get back to the drawing board and talk about how we can make this work,” says Kellerhals. “He has

a vested interest in getting us up and running.”

She and Amromin point out that the bright yellow “#RebuildDepotStreet” banner draped over ButterPunk’s entrance promotes a fundraiser created by Kay to help the businesses at 372 and 408 Depot St. recover from the flood.

ButterPunk wasn’t as far along with its buildout — the hoped-

CONTINUES ON PAGE 32

EFFORTS TO REBUILD: ButterPunk co-owners Dana Amromin, left, and Beth Kellerhals say their landlord has been a key element of support in their journey to recover from the flooding of their Depot Street space. Photo by Gina Smith

11/09: Reader: Edward 12-6 Vendor Pop-Up: Mateo Lamitola 10-7

11/10: Reader: Andrea 12-4 Mercy Fund Adoption Event 12-3

11/16: Reader: Edward 12-6 Book Signing w/ Oberon Zell 2-4

for opening date was around Thanksgiving — and suffered fewer losses than Gourmand and Black Cat. Still, floodwaters unexpectedly rose several feet in the space (their end of Depot Street isn’t officially in the main flood zone, says Kellerhals), and the walls are now stripped to the studs. They will have to start from scratch.

ButterPunk has set up a GoFundMe campaign to help with recovery, as have Black Cat and Gourmand. Kellerhals and Amromin plan to do Thanksgiving and Christmas bake sales and are keeping busy with volunteering and jobs with other local restaurants until they are able to open their restaurant.

Gourmand is planning to do pop-up dinners to raise funds and awareness in other cities, including New Orleans, Atlanta, Charleston, S.C., and Orlando, Fla. Phillips and Campbell are focusing on efforts to reopen Gypsy Queen and Simple and working with volunteers to attempt to salvage some of their equipment.

As for possible new launch timelines? No one is entirely sure.

THE BIG QUESTION

“We’re hoping for February — we hope Valentine’s Day,” says Amromin of ButterPunk. But she acknowledges that with so much uncertainty

right now, it’s still unknown. And she expresses concerns voiced by both the Gourmand and Black Cat owners: What’s the recovery timeline for the RAD and the local hospitality industry as a whole?

While Barrell and Grabach of Gourmand express deep love for the RAD and believe their business model would be successful there, they know the future is murky.

“Let’s say the whole town is reopened Dec. 1, all the restaurants are open and the staff are back. But what is the market like? Where are the tourists?” Barrell asks. “Are local people really going to show up? Because, I mean, a restaurant is a luxury experience.”

Campbell of Black Cat, who is general manager at Gypsy Queen Cuisine and an industry veteran, also expresses worries. “How many tourists are we losing over the next year because they can’t get hotels or Airbnbs or they can’t take showers or they can’t go on the hikes they want to go on?” he says. “It’s all such a gamble right now.”

Post-Helene, many WNC food and beverage businesses have reached out to the N.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association (NCRLA) for guidance, says President and CEO Lynn Minges . In response, the Raleigh-based trade organization reactivated its COVID-era emergency relief funding for hospi-

tality workers, though that covers employees rather than business owners, she says. It also collaborated with the state to create alternative water-use protocols and has been helping restaurants navigate operational changes and inspections for reopening.

For more long-term aid to business owners, the NCRLA is focusing on policy. The Monday after the disaster, the organization started crafting a state policy agenda similar to what it requested — and received — during COVID-19, Minges says.

“That was a great program that provided immediate cash to businesses,” she says. “Loans are nice, but loans have to be paid back, and [restaurants] need cash right now, during their busiest season.”

Minges notes that legislators may want to exercise caution to ensure funding is allocated in a way that will best help the region recover. But she feels hopeful that the NCRLA — a lobbying powerhouse representing more than 20,000 businesses that employ 9% of North Carolina’s workforce — has a good chance to win support for WNC hospitality businesses.

“We’re a pretty powerful force,” she says. “Policymakers are listening and have expressed nothing but the greatest interest in what they can do to help businesses, in general, recover, people recover.” X

Message of shamelessness, expression and hope

Photo courtesy of Spidermeka photos

Faith Laux is a somatic sex and relationship coach.

Xpress: What was the path that led you to founding your business?

Laux: The path to opening my business began with a personal crisis. We were new parents, stressed out, and our sex life was on autopilot in a very uninspiring way. When I finished breastfeeding, my libido returned but I didn’t want to just stay on autopilot. I wanted passion, presence and wildness — an intimacy that focused on authenticity, real communication and healing from shame. We aren’t taught how to do this in school, so I got

trained to be able to do this in my own life. Now I’m able to support individuals and couples to enjoy this as well.

What’s been the strangest aspect of running a business in Asheville?

I once went to a yoga class here in town. Before we started, a woman introduced herself to me and said that she followed me on Instagram and was feeling like a fan girl meeting me in real life. She shared how inspired she was by my message of shamelessness, expression and hope. I was flattered. It’s easy to post things and not have any idea how they are touching others. It’s rewarding to have a face-toface conversation with someone who lets you know that your message is landing and is making an actual difference in their life.

How do you define success, and what should every entrepreneur know before launching a business?

When I see people healing from the wounds of deep shame and loving aspects of themselves they thought unlovable, that is success. Creating a space to experience this catharsis and integration is a gift. It’s

incredible when people are able to overcome their blocks and revel in intimacy again or for the first time. Success is when my clients surpass their original goals and feel more radiantly alive.

Before launching a business, every entrepreneur should know that your business will have seasons. Seasons of preparation, tending, harvest and fallowness. It’s normal to experience all of them.

Follow-up question in the aftermath of Helene: How are you doing, and what is the greatest need for local business owners at this moment?

I’m grateful to share that my family and I are OK after Helene. But one thing’s for sure — we are all changed. The greatest need for local businesses? Well, that’ll be different for each business. Some simply need running water, others enough money to keep their employees afloat as they rebuild. Many need to pivot completely to respond to this new post-Helene reality. We need to grieve. We need to laugh. We need to be able to feel pleasure again. I think most of all though, we need hope. X

Authentic Brazilian Cuisine

Sense of place

Ashleigh Shanti’s debut cookbook explores microregions of the South that shaped her

BY KAY WEST

Preceding chef Ashleigh Shanti’s warm, conversational and engaging introduction to her first cookbook, Our South: Black Food Through My Lens, is a short author’s note telling the reader what the book is not.

It is not, she writes, an Appalachian cookbook, a book filled with her family’s soul food recipes, a Southern cookbook or a chef book. As the subtitle says, it is Black food through her lens.

“People probably have expectations when they read the title Our South,” she says, having just finished cooking “snacks” for an event at King BBQ in Charleston, S.C., celebrating the book’s publication. (Only a chef would casually use the term “snacks” for white shrimp in lettuce wraps with mango and plantains, and smoky ham barbecue oysters on the half shell.)

“It’s always gotten under my skin how people identify Southern food as this one thing,” she continues. “As a Black chef, I am influenced by the African diaspora, all the microregions of the South and how incredibly diverse our foodways are. That is how I cook, how my family cooks and how many Black chefs cook.”

Thinking of cookbooks she admires, she realized they all have a genuine sense of place. So she decided it was important for her to write a book that highlights the places meaningful to her and how they shaped her as a chef. “To write the proposal, I essentially moved back to my childhood bedroom in my parent’s house where I grew up and the kitchen where I baked my first cornbread,” she says.

At the time, in the wake of COVID19, she had recently left Benne on Eagle — where she had received a finalist nod for the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef of 2020 — and felt that it was a good time to get quiet and write. It was then that she determined the book would flow by the regions, cultures and people that had profoundly impacted her life.

Through recipes, stories and color-drenched photos by Johnny Autry of food, people and places,

Shanti’s book travels across the South through sections labeled “Backcountry,” “Lowcountry,” “Midlands,” “Lowlands” and “Homeland.”

“I was doing the regions that shaped me as a chef, and they were easy for me to travel to and see family,” she explains. “I really enjoyed that time, the memories and nostalgia, seeing aunties and uncles I hadn’t seen in years. They told stories and shared traditions and recipes. It was so special.”

That sense of attachment and affection is fully expressed in the introduction to each region. In “Backcountry” — or the Appalachian South, as she knows it — she recalls her great-aunt Hattie Mae and how she taught young Ashleigh the names of the edible things she foraged from the woods. This chapter offers recipes for chow chow, kilt lettuce, apple butter, soup beans, hot-water cornbread and stewed rabbit.

“Lowcountry” refers to the Coastal South; Shanti was unexpectedly born in St. Mary’s, Ga., when her parents were there for a family wedding. They often returned to visit her father’s family there and in Edisto Island, S.C. The smoky ham barbecue oyster and white shrimp in lettuce wraps recipes are in this section.

In “Midlands,” Shanti introduces readers to her great-grandmother Inez Miller of Mayesville, S.C., an area the chef remembers for its bounty of produce. Here dishes celebrate fresh-picked goodness on the table and the time-tested practices of pickling, preserving and putting up fruits and vegetables.

“Lowlands” — specifically Tidewater, Va. — is where Shanti grew up and where she began working in restaurants as a teen. Recipes here, like the savory cabbage and mushroom pancake and the chipped Virginia ham breakfast toast, evoke her mother’s kitchen.

“Homeland,” Shanti says, is where she is now. “Homeland is Asheville; it’s me cooking as a Black, queer, woman chef.”

It is where she opened her first restaurant, Good Hot Fish, in January, a tribute “to the fish-frying women in my family, who would hold up brown paper sacks of corn-

A

LIFE IN FOOD: In her recently released cookbook, Our South, chef Ashleigh Shanti rambles through regions that have inspired her cooking, including Western North Carolina. Photo of Shanti by Johnny Autry; cookbook cover image courtesy of Union Square & Co.

meal-dredged fresh, fried fish and shout out, ‘Get your good hot fish here!’” It’s where she and her wife, Meaghan Shanti, bought their first home this summer.

It’s where the tour for Our South was set to kick off on Oct. 15. That plan was scuttled in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene and instead, like so many in Asheville’s restaurant industry, Ashleigh Shanti found a new way to feed her community. “We started doing Sweet Relief pop-ups with what we all [including Neng Jr’s chef/owner Silver Iocovozzi] could salvage from our restaurants and donated product,” she says. “We went into underserved communities, set up cafeteria-style and filled people’s plates with hot food.”

Plans for reopening Good Hot Fish are a work in progress as Asheville still struggles to access potable water.

Meanwhile, the chef has taken some of her team on the road to cook for the book’s release tour, which began in Richmond, Va., on Oct. 20 and has wound its way through Charleston and Savannah, Ga., and will stop in New Orleans at Turkey & the Wolf restaurant on Tuesday, Nov. 19.

“I’ve been able to cook for family members who come to the book events — many of them are featured in the book,” Shanti says. “They know the importance of preserving these recipes and traditions and are just incredibly proud.”

Our South: Black Food Through My Lens is available locally at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Caf é , 55 Haywood St. and avl.mx/e8r. For updates on the reopening of Good Hot Fish, follow the restaurant on Instagram at avl.mx/e8p.  X

Mimi Vrable, Owner

‘Five Hundred Year Flood’

Songwriter Adam Pope shares a story of sorrow and solidarity

BY PAT MORAN

Hundreds of people gathered at Pack Square Park in downtown Asheville on Oct. 22 to participate in a candlelight vigil to mourn the dreadful toll Tropical Storm Helene inflicted on the region.

Following an opening invocation by the Rev. Jim Abbot, Asheville City Council member Maggie Ullman introduced singer-songwriter Adam Pope, whose song, “Five Hundred Year Flood,” Ullman had first heard on TikTok.

Pope downplayed his online reach. “Until two weeks ago, I didn’t know how to work TikTok or even spell it,” he said to a wave of laughter from the audience.

Over a cantering locomotive strum, Pope’s fine-grained baritone launched into the tense and coiling tune: “They called it a 500 year flood/Darkness descended on the Blue Ridge and swallowed it up.”

With imagery both homespun and apocalyptic, Pope’s roughhewn tune seemed immediate yet ancient: “I thought the devil dealt with only fire and flame/’Til I saw Satan surfing in from hell on a hurricane.”

The performance received a loud ovation from the audience.

“When I finished the song and walked offstage, I put my guitar in the case and I just broke down crying because there was so much emotion,” Pope told Xpress a few days after the event. “I don’t think that’s ever happened to me.”

OLD SOUL

Born and raised near WinstonSalem, Pope is currently based in Nashville, Tenn. But he has deep ties to Western North Carolina.

After falling in love with the storytelling songs of Alan Jackson, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley , Pope prevailed on his father to buy him a guitar. At age 15, Pope learned to play from his 80-year-old great-grandfather, Bud McCurdy , a Pennsylvania coal miner who moved his family to North Carolina in the 1960s.

“I learned to play from [my great-grandfather] who played and sang like Jimmie Rodgers,” Pope says. Rodgers, one of country music’s first superstars, got his big break on Asheville radio station WWNC in 1927. A historical marker honoring Rogers is at the intersection of Haywood Street and Battery Park Avenue in downtown Asheville.

“I was around a lot of historical old-school music, and I learned I was an old soul,” Pope says.

’MIDDLE OF MY WORLD’

The musician’s ties to WNC strengthened after he moved to Nashville intending to become a songwriter.

The first people he befriended were a couple from Burnsville. Through this connection, Pope made music business contacts that led to gigs at Carolina Barbeque in Newland; the Woolly Worm Festival in Banner Elk; and the Feed & Seed music venue and church in Fletcher.

With his wife, Amy , Pope also writes and performs Americana and gospel music. The couple’s latest album, Chances Worth Taking was recorded in 2022 and 2023 in Candler at The Shop Studio, owned and operated by engineer Van Atkins

“Western North Carolina is the middle of my world,” Pope says. “Between Nashville and the Piedmont, I go through Western North Carolina to get to where I’m going or to go home.”

WHAT WOULD CASH DO?

When Helene hit, Pope explains, he was on the road out West.

“I was trying to complete these projects in this space, a beautiful place in Paradise Valley, Mont., [but] I kept getting distracted with all the news about Helene,” he recalls. “I was waiting to hear back from family members and friends, and I hadn’t heard back from quite a few of them. So, it was weighing on me.”

Ultimately, his sense of guilt and dread led him to grab his guitar and channel one of his biggest influences.

“I thought, ’What would Johnny Cash say?’ And I saw this headline on my laptop. It said, ‘Five Hundred Year Flood.’ So I just took that and I sang.”

The rest is history, albeit unplanned.

“I had no real intention of doing much of anything with it,” Pope says. “I was just in the moment, experiencing my own grief and sadness with the song.”

To hear Pope’s song, visit avl.mx/e8s. X

MAN IN BLACK: When he wrote “Five Hundred Year Flood,” Adam Pope turned to his inspiration Johnny Cash. Photo by Henry Roy Photography

A sense of identity and belonging

Photo by Caleb Johnson

Eva Rodriguez-Cué is the owner of Haywood Famous, a Cuban coffee-centric café she opened earlier this year in West Asheville.

Xpress: What was the path that led you to founding your business?

Rodriguez-Cué: When I was working at my old jobs, I often had a voice in my head asking me, “When you were a little girl, what did you want to do when you grow up?” Sure, I was happy at those old jobs, but I knew I had something I needed to share with my community. When I took the time to think about it, I recalled a long-held dream I had of a nighttime coffee shop and soon got to work. As I developed the idea, I bounced it off of customers at my jobs, people at parties and anyone who would listen, and it seemed the community had a real need for the kind of space I envisioned: a coffee shop named after an inside joke, that provides a calm and unpretentious space for folks to go at night that centers around the exchange of art, music and community. What’s been the strangest aspect of running a business in Asheville?

A welcome and unexpected thing about doing business in Asheville is the lack of competition between my neighbors and me. We are all here to support each other through those inevitable rough spots and here to cheer on the big wins.

How do you define success, and what should every entrepreneur know before launching a business?

I believe that success is measured by personal perception and

experiences. But in my experience, I know I am doing something right in my business when someone expresses a sense of identity and belonging there. I also feel success has been found when a new face becomes a regular.

There are many things you cannot predict in business — that’s why folks love their spreadsheet divination — but one thing I urge any aspiring entrepreneur to do is ask for help when there is something overwhelming them. Entrepreneurship is not a one-size-fits-all vocation, and in the community, we have business owners diverse in background, ages and stages. Adversity in business affects us all, and it takes an open mind and a resilient spirit to tackle those challenges and come out the other side with experiences to share and an even stronger business than you had before.

Follow-up question in the aftermath of Helene: How are you doing, and what is the greatest need for local business owners at this moment?

Folks always ask me how I do what I do on my own. I tell them I don’t do it on my own and I just love what I do. It’s also worth it to mention I have now memorized the way to the Self Help and Mental Health section of the bookstore and make efforts to throw myself into as much compassionate care of my mental health as I do with running the business; it is no easy task but it is worth it.

When Helene hit, it threw me for a loop; here I was handling more than I ever had before and I can’t live in my house, while also considering I have to add finding basics like water, ice and milks to my daily task list for the home and the shop. It’s a lot, but this time I extended myself outward instead of in and found support all around me. Community is the only way I have gotten through Helene. As business owners, community is the biggest need and the strongest resource we have to get through Post-Helene. X

~ Celebrating 26 Years! ~ Fine art and craft gallery featuring work by over 160 primarily local and regional artists, specializing in nature-themed works.

Since 1998, Twigs & Leaves Gallery has been woman-owned and woman-led. Because of the tireless work of several strong women over the decades, the vision of original owner Kaaren Stoner continues to be realized as the gallery progresses and grows in its mission of supporting local artists and making high-quality fine art available to residents and tourists.

Fresh Dish

Camille Cogswell on baking stardom, legacy ovens and pie crust

BY GINA SMITH

Editor’s note: This interview was conducted several weeks before Tropical Storm Helene. Check the end of the story for post-storm updates.

Poised on a hillside along a winding mountain road in Madison County, pastry chef Camille Cogswell ’s Walnut Family Bakery seems to joyously embrace all things opposite of fast-paced, big-city restaurants and celebrity-chef buzz.

Outside the bakery, against a backdrop of forest and grassy slopes, a large brick bread oven crouches under a shelter like something from a fairy tale. Inside the small, sunlit kitchen, fresh local peaches and plums ripen on trays, while the arched door to another wood-fired oven watches from a nearby wall. It would be hard to guess from the rustic surroundings at Walnut Family Bakery that Cogswell is a bona fide culinary star. The former executive chef and executive pastry chef, respectively, of Philadelphia’s lauded K’Far Cafe and Zahav restaurant, Cogswell was nominated for the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef of the Year award in 2017 and won the title in 2018 at age 27 — she was the only pastry chef to receive the nomination both times and just the second to win (the first was famed Milk Bar founder Christina Tosi). Two years later, Cogswell was tapped as one of Food & Wine magazine’s 10 Best New Chefs of 2020.

But right now, Cogswell says, there’s no place she’d rather be than Madison County.

Her first taste of culinary training was at Asheville High School with former chef instructor Joe Lilly. After finishing all the school’s cooking courses, she undertook an internship at West End Bakery with then co-owner Cathy Cleary

After graduating high school in 2009, Cogswell enrolled at UNC Chapel Hill. “I was obsessed with food and cooking and baking, but I was unsure [about pursuing it as a career], because it was a less traditional route,” she says. But after three semesters, she realized her future was in professional kitchens.

She studied pastry at Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. — including a four-month externship at Blue Hill at Stone Barns with chef Dan Barber. Next came two years in New York City, first with Austrian pastry chef Alex Grunert at Brooklyn Fare followed by a year doing pastry with Mark Welker at The NoMad.

At age 25 she moved to Philadelphia, where she began gathering national accolades, awards and media attention. Then in 2020, with her star growing steadily brighter, Zahav and K’Far owners Steven Cook and Michael Solomonov suddenly pulled the plug, letting her go from her role with their CookNSolo company during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

FLOUR AND FIRE:

Pastry chef Camille Cogswell uses the outdoor wood-fire oven built by Jennifer Lapidus and Alan Scott in the late 1990s. The storied oven plays a starring role in the chef’s Walnut Family Bakery. Photo by Margaret Cogswell

awarded something like that, and you feel like you have to keep up a certain pace or a certain standard or push farther.

What happened with your separation from K’Far Cafe and the CookNSolo company?

I was unemployed in 2020 and down here for an extended period of time visiting family that October. For a few years, I had been following the people who were here before — Tara [Jensen] when she was here, and then when it changed hands to Brennan [Johnson]. … I had never been here, and I didn’t know those people personally, but literally the first morning that I got down to this area from Philly, I woke up and looked at my phone, and the first post that I saw was Brennan posting that his time here was going to be coming to an end soon because the place was being sold.

My mom contacted a real estate friend of hers, and we set up a viewing for that Sunday. We came out here, and I wasn’t thinking like, it would be so cool if I bought this place. I was just thinking it would be so cool to see it. But then, quickly, as I was here and touring the place, it became, like: How special is this place? Dreams were kind of forming in my subconscious. And I was surprised that my partner at the time was like, “You know, maybe this is our next adventure.”

Jennifer [Lapidus], the property owner and founder of Carolina Ground flour mill] asked for letters of intent, so I wrote about how I could see myself carrying on this legacy that she had built and loving this place and could see visions of what this property could be and raising my own family here.

Can you talk about the history of the two wood-fired ovens and the process of learning to use them?

Cogswell sat down with Xpress in August at her bakery over a bowl of her freshly made biscotti to talk about her early success, the journey back to WNC and her plans for the future.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Xpress: What did it feel like to win the James Beard Award? How did it impact your life?

Cogswell: It was completely unexpected and insane. … Also it was incredible — really, really affirming and exciting. And I’m so grateful for the experience and the attention that it brought to what we were doing [at K’Far Cafe].

As a chef, I put a lot of pressure on myself, especially in the year or two afterward, but I continue to catch myself even now doing that. You are

It was a new concept. It was something that they had not done before, and there were some growing pains in figuring out how to make it a successful and sustainable business. And there was a pandemic, right? I was working my ass off trying to make this thing work — it was three services a day, and they really wanted to have a restaurant piece that was a sit-down, full-service restaurant in the evenings. And I think it is telling that after the pandemic, they never brought that piece back.

We were just figuring out how to hit our stride, and the pandemic hit, so the company decided to make some changes, and letting me go was part of that, which took me and a lot of my peers in the company and in the Philly industry by surprise.

But I had a really amazing time in [the Cook and Solomonov restaurant] group, and it was a very formative experience for me. I am grateful that my exit from that company led me here.

This bakery is considered by many to be the cradle of modern wood-fire baking in Western North Carolina. How did you end up owning the property?

Sometime between 1998 and 2000 [the outdoor oven] was built, then [the indoor oven] was built five years later, around maybe 2004 or 2005. The really well-known wood-fire baker and masonry oven builder Alan Scott’s designs were used for both of these ovens. He and Jennifer Lapidus knew each other well, so he came down and helped her build the outdoor one with a few other people in this area. Then she held a kind of community workshop to build the indoor one a few years later.

I had done some wood-fire baking at Zahav — there’s the hearth oven there, but it is more of a dome-style oven, and we were only cooking with live fire making flatbread. … I like to bake bread and pastries and stuff out of these ovens, which is what they’re designed for. What you do is you build a fire in the oven for an extended period of time in a way that the heat from the fire absorbs into the bricks. Then you let the fire go out and you sweep out the ashes, so there’s just an insulated, hot box that you’re baking off of that absorbs heat.

I understand that after buying the property, you did a full renovation of the building and had intended to open it in late 2022. But then your plans suddenly changed. Can you talk about that?

It’s been quite a complicated journey. When I bought the place and moved here with my partner at the time, we were planning to open almost immediately, like that same year in 2021. Then once we really got into this kitchen, we decided it needed a very heavy update. … Then the goal became to open in fall of 2022. But just a couple months before we had a scheduled, planned opening and a scheduled, planned wedding, my partner left pretty suddenly. So I immediately put everything on hold. It took me a year to really decide what I wanted to do, if I wanted to continue this project alone or not. Once I did decide last year, I was like, I owe it a shot. I love this place. I love this property. It’s so special. It has felt like home for me from day one. What are you doing with the property now, and what are your plans for Walnut Family Bakery?

This year I’ve had a more formed vision that I’ve been working diligently toward, and I’m hoping that it will happen by the end of this year (see post-Helene updates below). … I’m going to open as a retail bakery two days a week on Fridays and Saturdays. That’ll be the first piece of the puzzle. And then, hopefully, soon after that I will add Sundays as a rotating calendar of events, like baking classes and pizza nights. … Everything will be to-go, but I have this lovely coffee bar here where people can wait for their pastries, and I’ll have a lot of picnic tables in the yard for people to hang out.

And you’ve been working with chef Trevor Payne at Tall John’s? Have you been baking there?

I’m a server there. I was part of the opening team. I joined the team after my ex-partner left. I had been full-tilt working toward getting this ready to open, and so I was like, OK, halt all that. I need to just get a job. I need to get out of the kitchen. I just need to support myself and do something else. … It’s been the perfect landing place for me.

Now for a couple of our regular “Fresh Dish” questions. First, is there a dish you’ve tried recently at a local restaurant that’s really impressed you?

The trout baloney sandwich at Good Hot Fish — when I first had that, I mean, mind blown. Like, it is insane. How Ashleigh [Shanti] is able to make that texture out of fish, and a local fish? So much work and care goes into that. And it is also

so nostalgic; I think that’s another reason why I loved it. And it’s just executed so well.

Is there an ingredient or technique you think home bakers should be using more?

People are so scared of making pie dough themselves. And it’s understandable, because there are ways in which it can react and be very tough or difficult. It can be easy to screw it up. But there are a couple of easy tips to make it accessible and demystify it. Are you willing to share one of those tips?

Sure. A lot of times people are scared about adding water, and there’s the whole trend of adding things other than water, like alcohol, so that [the dough] doesn’t become tough. … The way that I incorporate it — and I know some other pastry chefs do, too — is almost like a tossing method of breaking up the water and evenly hydrating the flour with my fingers instead of a mixing or kneading motion. I toss the water in with my flour, and it looks more like a crumble. I can tell it’s not dry anymore, but it’s not a dough yet until I compress it together.

Last question: Which local chef do you want to tag for the next “Fresh Dish”?

My friend Luis Martinez. He’s going to be opening his own taqueria, and he has this venture that he’s been working on for the past few years outside of his actual cooking, Tequio Foods, so I definitely want to spotlight him. (Note: Martinez launched Taqueria Rosita inside The Odd at 1045 Haywood Road in late August.)

Post-Helene updates: Cogswell told Xpress on Oct. 30 that she and Walnut Family Bakery emerged from Tropical Storm Helene “fairly unscathed,” but she estimates that the launch of the physical Walnut Family Bakery shop in Madison County will be delayed until spring.

In the meantime, she is returning to part-time work at Tall John’s, now that it has reopened, and in late October kicked off an ongoing series of traveling bake sales hosted in partnership with bakeries in other cities to raise money for WNC nonprofits and businesses impacted by Helene. Her first sale on Oct. 26 in Raleigh raised $1,600 for Beacon of Hope in Marshall. Locally, she held two paywhat-you-can Halloween bake sales in Marshall and Weaverville and plans to do similar pay-what-you can sales for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

To learn more about and support Cogswell’s traveling bake sale fundraisers, visit avl.mx/e92. For updates on her upcoming WNC holiday bake sales, sign up for Cogswell’s email newsletter at avl.mx/e93.  X

Community and mutual support

Photo by Shannon Brinkman

Jen Lauzon co-owns LaZoom Tours, which offers a variety of comedy and music tours on the famed purple bus. Xpress: What was the path that led you to founding your business?

Our business has truly been a labor of love. Jimmy [Lauzon] and I have been driven by a desire to provide guests with consistently outstanding, unique and colorful experiences. Our passion is to spread joy and laughter by taking guests on whimsical adventures through the streets of Asheville. This dedication to creating memorable experiences keeps us motivated and focused as we continue to grow the company.

What’s been the strangest aspect of running a business in Asheville?

The most unexpected aspect of running a business in Asheville has been surprisingly pleasant, to say the least. In Asheville, the tourism industry shows remarkable support for one another. From the day we opened our doors in 2007, we have felt embraced by the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce, locals and fellow businesses. This sense of community and mutual support is truly unique and something I believe you won’t often find in many other cities. Knowing that we have such a strong network around us has been incredibly reassuring and motivating for our continued success.

How do you define success, and what should every business owner know before launching?

I feel most successful when business is thriving and my

employees are genuinely happy. I hadn’t anticipated the profound impact that employee satisfaction would have on me, shaping the mission of my days, weeks and months. For new business owners, it’s crucial to understand that while it may not take long to master the craft of what you’re selling, if you intend to have employees, serving them well as a boss will be an ongoing commitment. This requires continuous effort to ensure a positive and supportive work environment, and it will be one of the most important and lasting responsibilities you undertake as a leader.

Follow-up question in the aftermath of Helene: How are you doing, and what is the greatest need for local business owners at this moment?

Thankfully, everyone on our team is safe and well, post-Helene. None of us lost our homes, though some did have to deal with damages. Despite these challenges, our team came together to volunteer and help our neighbors wherever possible.

LaZoom Room has reopened. We’ve invited the Yalla food truck to set up in our lot. We’ll be open Wednesday through Saturday, and Yalla will serve food Thursday through Saturday in the afternoon and evenings. We plan to kick off our annual Holiday Comedy Tour on Friday, Nov. 15. We understand ticket sales will likely be slow for quite some time.

Right now, funding is needed for small-business owners like us. We’ve had to lay off most of our team but are doing our best to keep our leadership crew intact, even though it’s tough to pay salaries with no revenue coming in. It’s difficult to know when visitors will return in numbers similar to recent years, and so many small businesses depend on that. While we intend to cater the tours we’re opening in November to locals, we rely on tourist volume to have the ability to bounce back fully. X

by Kay West

Vessels of Merriment Knuckle Deep BBQ Fest

Cheers to Grovewood Gallery on its sixth annual Vessels of Merriment invitational exhibition, where form and function meet in the artistry of ceramic vessels created for drinking, serving and storing favorite libations. Handcrafted wine goblets, whiskey cups, flasks, jugs and pitchers made by 17 potters from across the U.S. will be for sale at the gallery Saturday, Nov. 9, through Tuesday, Dec. 31. Artists and studios represented are Evelyn Ward, Gillian Parke , Helen Purdum ,

Julie Covington , Ken Sedberry , Lawful Studios, Lisa Gluckin , Mangum Pottery, Nicole Hsieh , Reiko Miyagi, Rebecca Zweibel , Rebekah Strickland, Ronan Kyle Peterson, Ruth Hesse, Silver Run Ceramics, Tangled Studios and Taylor Robenalt. The show opens with a reception 2-5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9. At the event, the gallery will accept cash donations to support the River Arts District Association’s flood relief efforts. avl.mx/e8m. X

Since 2007, the Knuckle Deep BBQ Fest has been a good-natured competition in the River Arts District pitting teams against one another for smoked meat supremacy. Traditionally, donations from guests who pigged out on the smoked chicken, pork and beef went to a nonprofit chosen by organizers. With its usual location — Wedge at Foundation on Foundy Street — destroyed by flooding, co-founder Brent Campbell and his committee did a catastrophe pivot, and this year’s festival will take place noon-5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 10, at Devil’s Foot Beverage Co.’s The Mule taproom.

Sixteen teams will set up the night before to cook for the event, but Campbell says they’re skipping the competition. “Our goal this year is to just feed people and say thank you to everyone who has supported this event in the past.” Admission is free, but donations are strongly encouraged; proceeds will be distributed to Resources for Resilience, Holiday Wishes for Foster Youth and several longtime sponsors of the festival whose businesses were severely impacted by Helene. Adult and nonalcoholic drinks will be for sale, and there will be live music. avl.mx/alv  X

Photo of vessels by Silver Run Ceramics courtesy of Grovewood Gallery

The Lost Weekend Pawpaw ice cream release

John Lennon and Yoko Ono ’s long love story is infamous; not as well-known is Lennon’s intimate relationship with his assistant May Pang . The 18-month affair — from late 1973 through 1975 — is often referred to as the Lost Weekend. During that time, Pang snapped candid photos of Lennon and those around him, including Ringo Starr , Keith Moon and his young son, Julian Lennon . From noon-7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 12-13, Pang and show producer Scott Segelbaum will be at Blackbird

Frame and Art with the exhibit

The Lost Weekend: The Photography of May Pang. Segelbaum says he pursued Pang for six years to mount the show. “These are amazing photos of that time where John is unguarded, happy and living life.”

Among the 35 photos is one of the last shots taken of Lennon and Paul McCartney from March 29, 1974. Pang will sign and number limited edition prints of the photos for buyers. Five percent of proceeds will go to a Tropical Storm Helene relief fund. avl.mx/apj.  X

Nonprofit Issue

Pawpaws — lumpy, brown-spotted and green-skinned with pale yellow flesh — could be considered the underappreciated ugly ducklings of fruit. The Hop Handcrafted Ice Cream aims to change that with its release on Friday, Nov. 8, of a seasonal pawpaw ice cream at all locations. The Hop co-owner Ashley Garrison describes the fruit, sourced for the ice cream from Henderson County-based Milkwood Meadows Farm, as

“magical,” with flavors of mango, banana, vanilla and pineapple. The Hop expects to have both dairy and vegan versions of the specialty in stores for about a week and a half. Asheville GreenWorks will be at The Hop’s Merrimon Avenue shop 3-6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8, with information on the pawpaw tree (its leaves are the sole food source for zebra swallowtail butterfly caterpillars) and pawpaw seedlings for sale. avl.mx/e8l  X

Xpress’ special issue focuses on the trends, triumphs and challenges of local nonprofits, making it an ideal platform to promote your mission and share your contributions with the community!

Photo of “Father Son” by Pang, courtesy Segelbaum

Photo courtesy of The Hop

CLUBLAND

its unique

For questions about free listings, call 828-251-1333, opt. 4.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Disclaimer Stand-Up Open Mic Comedy Night, 7pm

EDA'S HIDE-A-WAY

Bless Your Heart Trivia w/Harmon, 7pm

EULOGY

Lurky Skunk w/Terrordome & Puppychain (folk, punk, rock), 8pm

FLEETWOOD'S PSK Karaoke, 9pm

FRENCH BROAD

RIVER BREWERY

Saylor Brothers & Friends (jamgrass), 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB Old Time Jam, 5pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Bluegrass Jam w/Derek McCoy & Friends, 6pm

SHILOH & GAINES Trivia Wednesdays, 7pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA Poetry Open Mic, 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards (folk), 8pm

THE MEADOW AT HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Well-Crafted Music w/ Matt Smith, 6pm

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7

ARCHETYPE BREWING Drag Queen Karaoke, 7pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR

BAR

The MGBs (Americana), 7:30pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Blockhead w/Wick-It (hip-hop), 9pm

DSSOLVR

Hot To Go! Karaoke Night, 8pm

EDA'S HIDE-A-WAY Karaoke Night w/KJ Marcula, 8pm

FRENCH BROAD

RIVER BREWERY

Jerry's Dead (Grateful Dead & JGB Tribute), 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Bluegrass Jam w/Drew Matulich, 7pm

OKLAWAHA

BREWING CO.

Bill Loftus Duo (rock, blues, folk), 7pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Isaac Hadden's Thursday Throwdown, 9pm ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Fee Fi Phaux Fish (Phish tribute), 8pm

SHAKEY'S Karaoke w/Franco Nino, 9pm

SHILOH & GAINES Karaoke Night, 8pm

STATIC AGE LOFT Auto-Tune Karaoke w/ Who Gave This B*tch A Mic, 10pm

STATIC AGE RECORDS

Doc Henry, Roux, Fulmetric & An Orb (experimental, indiepop), 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

Clem Snide w/Rye Valley (alt-rock, indierock), 8pm

THE ODD

Asheville After Dark: Perversions, 8pm

THE ORANGE PEEL Drive-By Truckers (Southern-rock), 8pm

TWIN WILLOWS The Candleers (country), 6pm

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8

ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL Into the Fog w/Amabel Lee Band (psych, funk, bluegrass), 9pm

CORK & KEG

My New Favorites (country, Appalachian), 8pm

EULOGY

Dance Underground w/ In Plain Sight (electronic, house), 9pm

LAZOOM ROOM Drag Kings & Karaoke: WNC Queer Community Resiliency Gathering, 8pm

OKLAWAHA

BREWING CO. Fancy & the Friends in Low Places (country, Southern-rock), 8pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Mono Means One (psych, synth), 10pm

NASHVILLE-BASED NOISE POP: On Wednesday, Nov. 13, Nashville-based band Total Wife plays at Static Age Records, starting at 8 p.m. The band will bring

noise-pop sound, joined by Baby Wave and local favorites Tombstone Poetry and Trust Blinks. Photo courtesy of Riley Johnson

ONE WORLD

BREWING

Red Rock Hill (Americana, indie-rock), 8pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING WEST

Lady & The Lovers (funk, R&B, pop rock),

8:30pm

SHAKEY'S Friday Late Nights w/ DJ Ek Balam, 10pm

SHILOH & GAINES

Lazybirds (blues, jazz), 8pm

STATIC AGE LOFT

• Public Circuit & XOR (synth, electronic), 9pm

• Night Moves w/ Brandon Manitoba, 10pm

THE GREY EAGLE

Caitlin Krisko & The Broadcast (rock, blues), 8pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK

MOUNTAIN

Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road (bluegrass), 7:30pm

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9

ASHEVILLE GUITAR

BAR

Toby Walker (country, rock, Blues), 7:30pm

BATTERY PARK BOOK

EXCHANGE

Dinah's Daydream (jazz), 6pm

CORK & KEG

Soul Blue Rocks (soul, blues, R&B), 8pm

FLEETWOOD'S Tiny TVs, Comedic Death & Superdeath (punk, doom), 9pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Nobody’s Darling String Band, 4pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

The Get Right Band (psych-rock, indie), 8:30pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Mellow Swells (indie, R&B, electronic-rock), 10pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING

Muddy Guthrie (rock, Americana), 8pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING WEST

• Laurel Canyon East (folk, rock), 4pm

• Joe Medwick & Monkey Butt Music Presents: For the Love Levon & Lowell (multigenre), 9pm

SHAKEY'S Underground: Enigma w/DJ Wit My Demons, 10pm

SHILOH & GAINES

Raphael Graves Trio (Americana, folk), 9pm

SIERRA NEVADA

BREWING CO.

My Magnificent Nemesis (jazz, rock), 2pm

STATIC AGE RECORDS

Noun, A Deer A Horse & Kreamy 'Lectric santa (rock, punk, experimental), 9pm

THE GREY EAGLE

Joe Zimmerman (comedy), 7pm

THE ODD

Party Foul Drag, 8pm

THE ORANGE PEEL Pinky Patel (comedy), 8pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK MOUNTAIN

Zoe & Cloyd w/Will Straughan (bluegrass, klezgrass), 7pm

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Empire Strikes Brass (funk, rock), 8pm

FRENCH BROAD

RIVER BREWERY

Reggae Sunday w/ Chalwa, 3pm

GINGER'S REVENGE CRAFT BREWERY & TASTING ROOM

Jazz Sunday's, 2pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Traditional Irish Music Session, 3:30pm

OKLAWAHA

BREWING CO.

Izzi Hughes (multigenre), 4pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Brightsome Color (multi-genre), 9pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING WEST

One Love Sundays (reggae), 6pm

SIERRA NEVADA

BREWING CO.

Purple (jazz, soul, funk), 2pm

SLY GROG LOUNGE Open Mic w/Mike AndersEn, 6:30pm

THE GREY EAGLE Country Brunch w/ Fancy & the Gentleman, 11am

THE ORANGE PEEL

Morgan Wade w/Clover County (country, rock), 8pm

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11

FLEETWOOD'S Best Ever Karaoke w/KJ Chelsea, 9pm

HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Trivia Night w/Two Bald Guys & A Mic, 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Quizzo! Pub Trivia w/ Jason Mencer, 7:30pm

OKLAWAHA

BREWING CO.

Takes All Kinds Open Mic Nights, 7pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Mashup Mondays w/ JLloyd, 8pm

THE ORANGE PEEL GWAR (metal, punk), 7:30pm

THE RIVER ARTS DISTRICT BREWING CO. Trivia w/Billy, 7pm

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12

ARCHETYPE BREWING Trivia Tuesday, 6:30pm

EULOGY Willis (indie, surf-rock), 8pm

FRENCH BROAD RIVER BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

LOOKOUT BREWING CO.

Team Trivia Tuesday's, 6:30pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO. Team Trivia, 7pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL Turntable Tuesdays, 10pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

The Grateful Family Band Tuesdays (Grateful Dead tribute), 6pm

SHAKEY'S Booty Tuesday in The Office w/DJ Tamagatchi, 10pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Tuesday Night Open Jam, 8pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Craig Ferguson: Pants on Fire, 8pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK MOUNTAIN Open Mic, 7pm

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13

ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Disclaimer Stand-Up Open Mic Comedy Night, 7pm

EDA'S HIDE-A-WAY

Bless Your Heart Trivia w/Harmon, 7pm

EULOGY Spiter & Diabolus (metal, punk), 8pm

FLEETWOOD'S PSK Karaoke, 9pm

FRENCH BROAD RIVER BREWERY

Saylor Brothers & Friends (jamgrass), 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Old Time Jam, 5pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO. Bluegrass Jam w/Derek McCoy & Friends, 6pm

SHILOH & GAINES Trivia Wednesdays, 7pm

SIERRA NEVADA BREWING CO.

Nate Smith & King Garbage (jazz, R&B, hip-hop), 6pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA Poetry Open Mic, 8pm

STATIC AGE RECORDS

Total Wife, Tombstone Poetry, Baby Wave & Trust Blinks (alt-indie, shoegaze, noise-pop), 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE Old Marshall Jail Ballad Swap (Appalachian, folk), 6pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway (bluegrass, Americana, folk), 8pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK

MOUNTAIN Irish Session, 7pm

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14

BATTERY PARK BOOK

EXCHANGE

Mike Kenton & Jim Tanner (jazz), 5:30pm

DSSOLVR

Hot To Go! Karaoke Night, 8pm

EDA'S HIDE-A-WAY Karaoke Night w/KJ Marcula, 8pm

EULOGY

King Buffalo (psychrock), 8pm

FLEETWOOD'S TerraOke Takeover, 8pm

FRENCH BROAD RIVER BREWERY

Jerry's Dead (Grateful Dead & JGB Tribute), 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Bluegrass Jam w/Drew Matulich, 7pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Isaac Hadden's Thursday Throwdown, 9pm

ONE WORLD BREWING The Blinds (indie-pop, funk, soul), 7pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Fee Fi Phaux Fish (Phish tribute), 8pm

SHAKEY'S Karaoke w/Franco Nino, 9pm

SHILOH & GAINES Karaoke Night, 8pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA Django & Jenga Jazz Jam, 7pm

STATIC AGE LOFT

Auto-Tune Karaoke w/ Who Gave This B*tch A Mic, 10pm STATIC AGE RECORDS Frankie Rose & Star Anise (alt-indie, pop), 9pm

THE GREY EAGLE Harbour (pop, rock), 8pm

THE ORANGE PEEL Yoke Lore (indie-pop), 8pm

FREEWILL ASTROLOGY

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I rarely recommend acquisitive behavior. But my analysis of the astrological omens tells me you now have cosmic authorization to indulge in a sublime version of voracity. We might also refer to it as a license to practice a spiritually correct variety of greed. Here’s the fine print: You should NOT interpret this as permission to amass materialistic treasures and status symbols. Instead, the things you gather will be rich feelings, encounters with inspiring beauty, epiphanies about your divine purpose, and exquisite states of consciousness. You can also ask for and receive colossal supplies of love and affection.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The last time I ate a hamburger was in 1994. I doubt I will ever eat another. Why? The taste is not enjoyable to me, and no matter how well I chew it, my stomach always rebels. There’s an additional problem: For several reasons, cattle farming is a significant factor causing the climate crisis. I would rather not contribute to that decimation. Does my attitude toward hamburgers mean I am a judgmental, close-minded zealot? No, it doesn’t. I don’t proselytize to those who relish burgers, especially if they take other measures to reduce their carbon footprint. In this horoscope, dear Taurus, I am illustrating an approach I hope you will cultivate in the coming weeks. Be extra zealously devoted to your ideals and proclivities without condemning and dismissing those who don’t share them.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): There are numerous approaches to getting good results from meditation. One is to sit silently and still in a tranquil sanctuary. Another is to lie on the ground under a dark sky and beseech the stars to bestow inspiration. One of my personal favorites is to sing rowdy hymns to birds, insects, and trees while hiking vigorously in nature. How many other varieties can you imagine, Gemini? The coming weeks will be a favorable time to develop and expand your meditation skills. Here’s a key consideration: How can you achieve maximum fun while meditating? I recommend you free your mind to experiment with a host of interesting approaches.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): If there was ever an appropriate time for you to indulge in creatively rowdy thoughts and inspirationally unruly behavior, it would be now. Life is giving you license to de-emphasize decorum and formalities and to emphasize boisterous enthusiasm and plucky adventures. For the sake of your mental health, I believe you need to engage in experimental improvisations that include maverick expressions. What areas of your life need liberation? What feelings need to be released from their constraints? What worn-out old theories and opinions should be abandoned?

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Are your talents even slightly underrated and overlooked by others, Leo? Have your gifts received less than the full appreciation they deserve? Could you be of greater service and inspiration to your fellow humans if only your offerings were better known? If you answered yes to any of those questions, I’m pleased to tell you that the coming months should bring remedies. Life will be conspiring with you to help spread your influence and boost your clout.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): I wish it were true that the forces of darkness are lined up in opposition to the forces of light. Life would be so much easier for you. But I’m afraid it’s not that simple and clear. In my view, a more accurate metaphor might be that the energies of smokey grey are squaring off with the energies of dusky beige. Each side has a touch of both wrongness and rightness, a bit of ugliness and beauty. So what is the most honorable role you can play in this showdown? My suggestion is to develop a third side, an alternate way.

(Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the early part

BY ROB BREZSNY

age 49, he was asked by director Francis Ford Coppola to co-write the script for the film The Godfather. It turned out to be a sensational rookie effort. He was ultimately awarded an Academy Award for it, and later garnered another Oscar for his screenplay for The Godfather Part II. It was only then that Puzo realized he had found his calling and decided he should study the art of screenwriting. In the first chapter of the first book he bought about the subject, he read with great amusement that the ideal screenplay was the one by Mario Puzo for The Godfather. I bring this story to your attention, Libra, because you are approaching a time with resemblances to Puzo’s situation before Coppola solicited his work. Trust your rookie instincts!

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In the life cycle of a butterfly, the earliest stages are larva and pupa. As a larva, the future beauty crawls around as a caterpillar, cramming itself with nutritive substance. After it transitions into the pupa state, it’s inert for a while, working on the inside of its cocoon to transform itself into its ultimate form. I don’t want to be too literal about the comparison, but my sense is that your time as a larva will last another two months, whereupon you will begin your pupa phase. When will you emerge as a winged creature? It depends on how earnestly you work as a pupa, but I expect no later than March 2025.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Brian Wilson, co-founder of the Beach Boys, is one of the most innovative and imaginative songwriters ever. Many of his compositions have become bestselling hit tunes. But he had a rough start in his craft. The first song he ever wrote was “Surfin.’” He submitted it to fulfill an assignment in his high school music class, but his teacher gave it an F, the lowest possible grade. Fifty-eight years later, Wilson returned to the school for a visit, and the new principal changed his original grade to an A. I foresee a comparable event occurring in your life sometime soon: a vindication, restitution, or reparation.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Earlier this year, 79-year-old rock singer Rod Stewart performed his greatest hits during a multi-city tour in many countries. “I shall never retire!” he proclaimed. Can you guess what astrological sign he is? Capricorn, of course. Many members of your tribe age very well, displaying stamina and vitality into later life. I bring this to your attention because I think you are close to discovering new secrets and tricks that will serve you well as you ripen. Here are some meditations that might be helpful: 1. What haven’t you been ready to do before, but might be soon? 2. What fun things would you love to be doing years from now, and how could you seed their future growth?

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Scientists have discovered the fossil remains of over 700 dinosaur species buried underground. But the experts agree there are many more down there. Previously unknown species are still being unearthed every year. Let’s use these facts as a metaphor for your life in the coming months. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you could learn a host of fresh truths about your history. You may have imagined that your past is finished and finalized, but it’s not. I encourage you to have fun hunting for revelations and investigations that will transform the story of your life.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): You haven’t fully tapped into all of your vast potentials, Pisces. Latent talents and aptitudes within you may still be at least partially dormant. It’s even possible that some of your future powers are so foreign to your self-concept that they will feel like magic when they finally come into full expression. Now here’s the very good news: The coming months will be an excellent time to figure out what you need to do to express a more complete version of yourself.

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LIBRA

of his career, Libran author Mario Puzo wrote short stories and novels, but never a screenplay. At

of

17 Worm found in every ecosystem on Earth, even the deepest oceans

18 Experiment subject

20 Natty dresser

21 Some foreigners who have yet to make contact, for short

22 Dollar, informally

23 ID created in 1936

24 Wharton deg.

26 Complain (about)

28 Fivers

32 Smoothie berry

34 Literary ___

36 Body spray brand

37 Image-cultivating group, informally 40 Religious figure in red

42 Cupid, e.g.

44 Deal with, as a problem

45 Special ___ 46 Airhead

47 Section of The New York Times

48 Brooklyn ballers

50 Member of a historically privileged U.S. group

52 “So, is that ___?”

53 A public speaking coach might tell you to avoid these

55 Close tightly

Sudden loud noise

60 Kind of acid that forms proteins

Iroquois nation

Word with lawyer or balloon

Rare blood type, for short

It often has “Card” and “Receipt” slots

Interprets, as a defense does a quarterback

Goes on foot, with “it”

Small shoelace sheath

Come up

Ferndean ___, Mr. Rochester’s residence at the end of “Jane Eyre”

Qty.

Shopper’s stop

“Ah, OK”

___-Aid

Portent

“Dr.”