Squeezed into a corner room on the ground floor of what was once a grade school in a quiet Waynesville neighborhood, a small free pantry and market provides food, clothing and household goods to some of Haywood County’s most vulnerable citizens at no cost. The pantry is one of many, rooted in compassion and community, but also in contradiction. 

To the Editor:

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) buys about $2 billion — billion — in U.S. agricultural products per year. American crops like wheat, peas, lentils, rice, corn, soybeans, vegetable oil and sorghum are purchased for USAID programs. 

With billions in damages, limited state aid and considerable uncertainty surrounding federal funding, local officials are still pushing for streamlined disaster response to rebuild their communities months after Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina.

Putting the truck into park, my girlfriend, Sarah, and I finally returned to our quaint apartment in downtown Waynesville Monday evening. After a long journey from the North Carolina coast back to Haywood County this weekend, it’s been a whirlwind of emotions.  

In a book written in a first-person, vulnerable and intimately entertaining narrative oral storytelling voice, Ken Smith takes us through his entire life — of youthful globe-trotting adventure and hardship, to an eventual life of self-sufficiency and spiritual awareness in Scotland.

Most people don’t realize that some accidental opioid overdoses are reversible with the quick administration of an opioid antagonist called naloxone, commonly found as a nasal spray and sold under the brand name of Narcan. 

Learn how to stay safe in the woods with a course 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 17, at Standing Rock Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Learn how to stay found with a land navigation course offered 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, July 20, at Allens Creek Park in Waynesville.  

Will White can prepare you to survive just about any situation.

GATLINBURG — It started with an ember. 

One single ember, falling from the sky into Michael Luciano’s front yard in Chalet Village in Gatlinburg.