As on any other rainy late summer morning in Southern Appalachia, the sun rose over densely wooded, knobby green peaks cloaked in a thick downy mist.

At a large, nondescript warehouse off Swannanoa River Road just outside downtown Asheville, it may have looked like any other day — workers bustling about, trucks coming in and out — but for MANNA FoodBank, which fights food insecurity in a historically poverty-stricken region by serving up to 190,000 people a month, this day would be unlike any other for perhaps the last thousand years. 

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. 

To the Editor:

It has been hard to keep up with the news cycles during the first week of President Trump’s administration, but a few things deserve public ridicule. In his infinite wisdom, Trump pardoned and released about 1,500 January 6 criminal defendants into our communities to do violence and organize their militias.

Presented by the Town of Sylva, the 26th annual Greening Up the Mountains festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Saturday, April 27, in downtown Sylva.