Aid Useful Plants Nursery's Recovery After Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Helene delivered catastrophic winds, flooding, and tree-fall; damaged our water lines; and washed out the roads and bridges to Useful Plants Nursery.

While our greenhouses and plants survived, our business losses are substantial. Customers cannot safely access the nursery due to damage at Hwy 9 and Bat Cave & Camp Elliot Roads. Community plant shows are canceled. And the nursery cannot safely deliver plants to town.

Employees who depend on work at the nursery are struggling to make ends meet. It's unclear whether or how gig workers can receive disaster unemployment.

In addition, the planting and purchasing needed to prepare for the next season is impaired. And without our business income, we cannot pay the workers who would help with the planting, potting up, and other labor needed for that preparation.

We are grateful that our teams are all safe, housed, and fed. We are in sorrow for the loss of life, property, and normalcy in Western North Carolina. While driving a few highways in the Asheville area, I saw many demolished houses, mobile homes, businesses, cars, and roads. The count of missing persons goes down as the count of lost lives goes up. We hear daily of entire families taken by the floods. We're helping those in need where and when we can, as are many others throughout the region. The upwelling of community care is inspiring. FEMA distribution and aid appears to be happening everywhere, from City Halls to County churches to country stores. This is a heavy economic hit to North Carolina. How hard remains remains to be seen.

We at Useful Plants Nursery were spared the worst. Our teams spent these past few weeks helping the ecovillage where we're located and surrounding communities clear roads and rooftops, repair water lines and a hydroelectric system, and other support. The roads into Earthaven and Useful Plants Nursery are passable when necessary, but still unsafe and vulnerable to new landslides.

Our attention turns now to stabilizing our economic situation, finding innovative ways to prepare for next season, and hopefully, generating enough support that we can pay the workers who depend on us and purchase the supplies, plants, and equipment needed to stay in business.

Donations will be used for:

We extend our deepest gratitude to those who helped grow Useful Plants Nursery into a thriving source of permaculture-based plants and education. And we thank you now for coming to our aid in a time of crisis. We are determined to restore access, plants stocks, and functionality as quickly as possible. We will live long and prosper.

Lyndon Felps, Owner/Manager

Useful Plants Nursery

Black Mountain, NC

www.usefulplants.org

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