Dear Go Local Loyalists,

As I sit at the table writing this month’s (way overdue) newsletter, I keep catching myself looking out the window at the start of this beautiful day. The weather this week has been nothing short of spectacular, especially for August. My incentive to keep writing and getting this newsletter in your inboxes is I promised myself a walk with my pups afterwards. So here we go!

Welcome New Go Local Members!

It is always a pleasure to introduce our new Go Local members who can be now be found in our online directory and smartphone app. Please join me in welcoming our latest new members!

Asheville Symphony – $5 off tickets to Masterworks Series or Recital performances

OWL Bakery – 10% off house-made products totaling over $20

The Cottage Door – Go Local members receive 10% off all full priced merchandise

Milkcrate Tattoo – $20 off any flash tattoo design

A.L. Odom Locksmiths – 10% off labor charges for first time customers

VITAL Real Estate Services – Free Consultation

Doster Chiropractic – Free Consultation and Examination on initial visit

Go Local Businesses Show Up For Helene Recovery

In July, we started sharing stories from our local independent business members about how they stepped up to help our community recover from the devastation of Helene. As I mentioned last month we’ve all heard stories of heroism, unselfish acts of support, generosity, and love. Knowing many Go Local businesses had their own stories, I reached out to ask if they’d share them. And they delivered! Through our newsletters, we’ll continue to share these stories leading up to and beyond the 1 year milestone at the end of September. For today’s newsletter, I’ll share 3 stories. They are each unique and demonstrates the breadth of support given by our businesses to our community. To read all of the stories, you can find them on our website at: https://golocalasheville.com/business-of-community-stories

If you are a current or future customer of one of these businesses, especially with the milestone coming up, please take a moment to thank them for what they did for our community.

Amp’d Design (Story submitted by Alyssa Phillips)

From November through February, I collaborated with Nicole McConville (Nicole McConville Photography) to co-host a free, virtual, monthly event called “Resilience Roundtable: WNC Business Pivot Chats.” These were guided group discussions to connect and brainstorm new marketing ideas and practical strategies for reaching customers beyond the Asheville area while WNC recovered from Helene.

This series came about because we noticed a lot of businesses creating new offers and products post-Helene to help sustain their income. Because many of these businesses rely on local customers and tourists coming into Asheville, there was a huge need for these businesses to reach customers/clients in other places that were more readily able to spend and support them while Asheville’s economy recovered.

The topics we covered at the Resilience Roundtable events included tapping into your network and existing relationships, driving more traffic to your website, and collaborating & cross-promoting with other businesses. These events were a great avenue for local business owners to connect and relate to each other’s experiences, while proactively helping each other find new ways to sustain our businesses and thrive again. Great ideas came out the events!

Devil’s Foot Brewery – The Mule Taproom (Story submitted by Katie Smith)

Within a day of the storm we knew we needed to do something, so after cleaning up flooded areas of the building we turned our taproom (The Mule) into a hub for relief efforts. We received and distributed thousands of cans of clean drinking water from our friends in Charlotte to individuals, families, and businesses. We also started connecting with breweries and other smaller businesses in Asheville to figure out how to get the much needed water to keep their facilities somewhat operating. Our partners and friends across the beverage industry came together in a big way, and we were so proud to be a part of such an amazing community during such a scary time.

Our staff, friends, family, and neighbors showed up every day at The Mule to help, organizing donations, reaching out to contacts in other cities, and driving supplies to areas that needed them most, whoever had cell service used every minute to figure out who needed what and where. What started as a few people chipping in quickly grew into a full-blown grassroots network of care and connection. We witnessed true kindness as strangers drove hours to come and drop off what they could to help our community, to experience such love firsthand is something we will never forget!

Throughout it all, we witnessed the true strength of this community, and we’re honored to have played a part in the recovery. We cannot thank Go Local enough for shining a spotlight on the businesses that did so much during this time and we greatly appreciate that, that’s what makes our community so special!

Green River Woods (Story submitted by Matt Christie)

Both on our own and with a professional tree service company, Green River Woods worked from September through the spring to help clear roads and remove trees from homes, cars and yards. After people were no longer trapped and the immediate danger subsided, our focus shifted to removing hundreds of logs that we could invest in milling and drying into furniture-grade lumber. We helped many fellow woodworkers in the flood zone, salvaging and cleaning and donating what we could.

Mountain BizWorks Releases Post Helene Survey of 700 Local Businesses

Mountain BizWorks, a Go Local Member and Partner, just released an important survey of small businesses post Helene. If you haven’t already read the report, here is a link to it. Seven hundred (700) businesses in Western Carolina responded making it a very robust analysis into our local small business community and the severe economic impact Helene had on our region. While recovery has been overwhelmingly positive, there is still much need in our community that will not be fully met for a while.

This seems like a good place to recognize the recently reopened Corner Kitchen, Zillicoah Brewery, The Marquee and others. And we can’t leave out the stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway that reopened, which will mean so much to our fall visitors. We continue to have new restaurants and retail establishments opening as well as others that are opening 2nd locations. It’s hard to come up with a better word than resilience when talking about Asheville and WNC local independent business community, so we’ll just leave it at that.

Bountiful Cities and the FEAST Program – Update

As you may remember, Go Local just partnered with Bountiful Cities (BC) on its annual fundraiser (they raised $22,000 to support future food sustainability projects). Also as a reminder, Bountiful Cities supports the FEAST (Fresh, Easy, Affordable, Sustainable and Tasty) garden programs in Asheville City Schools and many of the schools use donations from Go Local card sales to help support these gardens. Today, Lucy Herring Elementary School, announced they hired a FEAST coordinator for their school! Woohoo!! Now folks, this is a big deal. For the first time in 15 years, BC has a dedicated FEAST Classroom where “Farmer Nicole” can host cooking and gardening lessons indoors on rainy and cold days—basically year round! And the classroom windows look out onto the garden, keeping students connected to where their food grows! We’re so excited as this program is so important for our students. If you want to support, follow Bountiful Cities on social media to find information and get updates, and contribute to their FEAST Fall Fundraiser at BountifulCities.org (yes, fundraising for nonprofits are year round efforts).

Thank-you, Newsletter Subscribers, for all you do for our community. Please don’t hesitate to contact me at sherree@golocalasheville with any questions or comments about the newsletter.

You Local Loyalist,

Sherree