Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler and USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden signed a $221 million federal block grant agreement that targets aid to North Carolina farmers who sustained losses and damages from Hurricane Helene in 2024. 

Unearthing history is nothing new to Cherokee Language Program director and associate professor Sara Snyder Hopkins. Thanks to a federal grant, she and a group of colleagues will continue to do so. 

The Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University has just received a grant from the North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources for $54,612. 

A popular hiking destination in Jackson County will soon see expanded access and new trail construction, thanks state funding awarded to the Town of Sylva. 

At its July 10 meeting, the Sylva Board of Commissioners approved a resolution authorizing town staff to accept a $92,000 grant from the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ Recreational Trails Program.

On the nine-month anniversary of Hurricane Helene, Gov. Josh Stein signed the North Carolina General Assembly’s fifth major installment of recovery funding — a sweeping $575 million package aimed at rebuilding roads, bridges, schools and government infrastructure across the state’s western region while omitting the $60 million in small business grant support that House lawmakers had supported. 

The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation has secured a three-year, $750,000 grant from the Dogwood Health Trust to support regional strategies to advance tourism and related economic development. The grant activities will benefit workers and businesses in numerous gateway communities along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. 

The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation has secured a three-year, $5.13 million grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) to support regional strategies to advance cultural and recreational tourism. The grant activities will benefit dozens of Appalachian gateway communities along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and North Carolina that host millions of visitors each year. 

A long-anticipated recreation project in Haywood County took a significant step forward on June 2 as commissioners accepted a bid for the construction of Raccoon Creek Bike Park. 

Duke Energy Foundation has awarded United Way of Haywood County a $25,000 grant to expand its post-Helene efforts in western North Carolina. The funding is part of $500,000 in new grants from Duke Energy Foundation awarded to 20 nonprofits supporting long-term recovery efforts in western North Carolina. 

Inside Keith Gibbs’ office hangs an imprint of a sicklefin redhorse, a sucker fish that the Western Carolina University assistant professor in the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resources takes great interest in.