Until last year, the old house languishing on Academy Street on Bryson City United Methodist Church’s property was seen as a nuisance.

Armed with five-gallon buckets and a groundswell of energy, 14 teens from Balsam-based SOAR Camp descended on Eugene Christopher’s Waynesville farm this month with a simple task before them — feed the hungry of Haywood County by collecting as many potatoes as possible. 

Clouds hung low over the waning daylight Nov. 11, air slightly hazier than usual from the smoke of nearby wildfires. The leafless November scene could have been a bleak one but for the liveliness of the soundscape, which featured the back-and-forth banter of high school kids freed from the rules of volume control that govern a typical school day. The rumbling of Christopher’s tractor served as the background to their shouts as he traversed the rows, turning the soil for harvest.

It was nighttime in the White Mountains, and Steve Claxton was pretty sure he wouldn’t make it till morning. Rain was falling, and winds were ripping through his campsite at 90 miles per hour, sharpening the 40-degree temperatures like a knife. He’d known that camping above treeline was a bad idea, but an incoming storm had forced him to do it — now he was afraid it was the last thing he would ever do. 

“At Mount Washington there’s a huge wall of people who died in the White Mountains, most of them in July and August and most of them from hypothermia,” Claxton said. “I really thought they were going to have to add my name to that.”

Fourteen Macon County charities are vying for a piece of Franklin’s $40,000 nonprofit funding pool, but not all organizations will walk away with their full request. 

For Tony Campolo, spending last week amid a gathering of senior citizens from across the Southeast was just about the most exciting thing imaginable. And that’s even taking into account that he views “exciting” as an overused word that’s best avoided.

The Macon Aero Modelers Club members are looking forward to showing off their flying skills to the public this weekend during their annual National Model Aviation Day.

The Community Kitchen in Canton works hard to make sure no one in the community goes hungry, and now the organization needs help from the community it serves to expand its food ministry.

Work will begin on establishing a shelter for Cherokee’s homeless following passage of a resolution Principal Chief Patrick Lambert introduced this month.

Things are coming down to the wire for Jackson County’s only homeless shelter. Without a fast infusion of cash, Jackson County Neighbors in Need is set to run out of money in under two weeks, and winter is far from over. 

With the holidays currently underway, there’s plenty for all of us to be grateful for living here in Western North Carolina. A roof over our heads, food in our bellies, a warm bed to climb into each night, a beautiful mountain view to awaken us each morning.