Home Care In Black Mountain, NC

The nonprofit Paws & Effect is experiencing a “restart” according to Executive Director and Founder Nicole Shumate.

Originally formed in 2006 in Des Moines, Iowa, the nonprofit expanded to Western North Carolina when Shumate moved to Black Mountain in 2017. Paws & Effect now works to place service dogs in both Iowa and North Carolina.

Shumate said she started the nonprofit as a therapy dog organization that worked with children at a local hospital in Des Moines. She said she had moved to the area from Colorado where she was previously involved with therapy dog organizations. When she did not see one in Des Moines, she started one herself.

Shumate said the organization “morphed itself” into placing service dogs when she got connected with the local National Guard.

“I kind of figured we would just do one round of service dogs and it be one and done,” Shumate said. “It just ended up changing the course of Paws & Effect.”

When Shumate moved to Black Mountain, she was still working remotely on Paws & Effect in Iowa. She said while she was focused on Iowa, the nonprofit was still placing a small amount of service dogs in North Carolina at the same time.

When the pandemic hit, Shumate said Paws & Effect was in the process of placing service dogs. It took the organization 18 months to place the animals.

“During that 18 months, we did not bring in puppies because we weren’t sure we were going to be able to give them the opportunities that they would need to become well-rounded service dogs,” Shumate said.

In 2022, Paws & Effect started fundraising again to start bringing more service dogs to North Carolina.

After two years of fundraising, more dogs were on their way.

Then Tropical Storm Helene hit Western North Carolina a week after the first dog arrived.

Shumate said that dog was sent back because Paws & Effect had no way to take care of it while surviving the storm.

Now, Shumate said Paws & Effect is ready to start again.

“This is our restart,” Shumate said. “We’ve been doing the same thing I think the rest of the community has been doing, which is really just kind of picking up the pieces. Our goal is to have the puppies here in Asheville in September or October, and that will launch the next round of placements.”

Paws & Effect places dogs with “community-based puppy raisers” and covers all veterinary costs along with food and toys. The organization meets with the volunteers weekly to help give the puppies public experiences. These experiences can range from going to see Christmas lights to going to baseball games and even Disneyland.

“We really want them to be solid dogs,” Shumate said.

The dogs are with these community partners from 12-15 months. When they return to Paws & Effect, the dogs complete their training with the clicker training method and are then placed with a recipient at no cost.

After Helene, Shumate said the work Paws & Effect can do is important for the community.

She said Paws & Effect is fundraising and doing community outreach to help with their efforts. These events include bingo nights at Wild Wings Cafe in Arden and a book club.

Shumate said Paws & Effect can help not only by placing service dogs, but also by “leveraging some” expertise, which she said will be needed as Western North Carolina continues to recover from Helene.

“I think over the next two years we’re going to find a lot of people whose injuries didn’t resolve as well as we had hoped,” Shumate said. “Whether those are physical injuries or psychiatric injuries, I think we’re going to find out over time that not everybody bounced all the way back.”

Karrigan Monk is the Swannanoa Valley communities reporter for Black Mountain News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at[email protected].

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Black Mountain News

In the wake of disasters around the country, the nonprofit Mercy Chefs works to provide meals to those impacted.

Since Tropical Storm Helene hit Western North Carolina Sept. 27, Mercy Chefs has provided more than 393,000 hot meals to the area, according to a Jan. 23 news release from the nonprofit.

Now, after working out of mobile kitchens and a kitchen in Weaverville, Mercy Chefs is opening a Beacon of Hope kitchen in Black Mountain. This new kitchen will be located at Christmount Christian Assembly.

Gary LeBlanc, founder and CEO of the Virginia-based Mercy Chefs, told Black Mountain News that the first Beacon of Hope kitchen was established in Panama City, Florida, after Hurricane Michael. He said Mercy Chefs responded to the initial need and then came back for the holidays and spring break before setting up a kitchen in a middle school for the summer.

“We worked in the community doing what we do and that’s just making great meals,” LeBlanc said.

These efforts were repeated in Paducah, Kentucky, after a tornado swept through the town. According to LeBlanc, Mercy Chefs was there for 10 months.

LeBlanc said he has been working in disaster areas for 18 years, and Helene caused some of the “worst” damage he has ever seen.

“When we got to Asheville … we knew that there was going to be a need for long-term relief work, that long-term recover work,” LeBlanc said. “We started looking for a place to do that.”

At the first more permanent location established in Western North Carolina in Weaverville, LeBlanc said there was a capacity to serve 1,000 meals a day. He said with spring and summer coming up and “recovery work and clean-up work beginning in earnest,” a bigger kitchen would be needed to produce more meals and so they began looking for one.

Now at Christmount in Black Mountain, Mercy Chefs will have the capacity to serve 4,000-5,000 meals a day.

“Whatever need we find in the community we’ll be able to meet,” LeBlanc said.

He said the Mercy Chefs team has been in Christmount for about a month, working to renovate the kitchen and bring in new equipment.

The meals produced in this kitchen will go to a variety of places, including Veterans Restoration Quarters, elder care facilities, volunteer teams and those in harder-hit areas that may still need a meal.

“We know some of the more remote communities are still struggling a bit,” LeBlanc said. “While they don’t need daily meals, lunch and dinner, weekly meals they might still need. … We’re just trying to get into the heart of the need.”

In addition to providing meals, Mercy Chefs will begin offering community meals and cooking classes for children. LeBlanc said this is a way for the nonprofit to continue “integrating into the community.”

The kitchen will operate with somewhere between five and 12 volunteers daily with four staff chefs hired from the community.

“We’re trying to put money into the local economy in any way we can,” LeBlanc said. “We’re working with the local farmer groups and the local distribution companies, trying to make sure we buy local as much as possible. We think that’s a really important part of what we need to do.”

Mercy Chefs has also “absorbed” the cooking staff from Christmount to have that staff work with the Mercy Chefs team and learn “techniques for high volume cooking and quality production.”

LeBlanc said Mercy Chefs is prepared to stay in Western North Carolina through summer.

“We’re going to be there until the need is met,” LeBlanc said. “If we get to the end of that and there’s still a need, we will continue to stay.”

Karrigan Monk is the Swannanoa Valley communities reporter for Black Mountain News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at [email protected].

Editor's note: The Asheville Citizen Times Answer Woman/Answer Man columns took a hiatus during our coverage of Tropical Storm Helene. We will answer your storm-related questions in our newly launched "Asheville Answers" column on Sundays. We will also answer other burning questions. Email Executive Editor [email protected] and your question and answer could appear in an upcoming issue.

Question: Is the relief center at the Black Mountain Ingles moving? Where to?

Answer: When Tropical Storm Helene hit Western North Carolina Sept. 27, roads across the region were shut down due to landslides and debris, while others were washed away.

With Interstate 40 being closed in both directions, it took days for the town of Black Mountain to get in a shipment of water.

When the water finally arrived, it residents like Allison Hargus who started helping to distribute it.

“We didn’t have any power, we didn’t have any water, so we were all neighbors that were twiddling their thumbs thinking we really need to do something to help folks,” Hargus said. “When that water tanker came in and everyone got out and cheering and crying, it was like, ‘OK, I am ready. I am locked and loaded. Let’s get folks the things that they need.'”

Hargus lives close to the Black Mountain Ingles where the water tanker was being delivered and where she established Appalachian Community Relief, a resource hub and now nonprofit.

The organization formed and spent its first four months in the Black Mountain Ingles Garden Center. Now, Hargus and Appalachian Community Relief are preparing for a move to a new space, with the hope to open it by the end of February.

Hargus said the reasons for the move include the need for an indoor space and Ingles needing its garden center space back. She said, with the open-air garden center, Appalachian Community Relief has “had to fight the elements constantly to just try to get by.” From wind and rain to snow, weather has been “a constant struggle,” according to Hargus.

With the new space, at 104 East Side Drive, Unit 308, Hargus said the supplies will now be protected.

“We’re going to work on accessibility constantly because it’s not as visible as being here in the garden center,” Hargus said. “But it has four walls. It has climate control and we’re going to create a safe space for people to come to for whatever they need.”

Hargus said the new space will operate on an appointment-only model because it is smaller and there is less parking. However, she said the nonprofit is going to fundraise for a mobile market to be out in the community.

Before Helene, Hargus worked as a full-time photographer. Now, she serves as the executive director of Appalachian Community Relief while also working as a photographer for other organizations.

She said she was motivated to keep coming back to the work being done at the Ingles garden center because people continued to be concerned and “coming together for each other.”

“I felt like we were doing a lot of good,” Hargus said. “I just honestly got hooked on taking care of people and kept wanting to show up every day.”

For long-term goals for the organization, Hargus said she wants Appalachian Community Relief to be a place where people can come in times of crisis.

“We really want to try to sustain families that are in crisis,” Hargus said. “Right now that’s storm victims and folks that were affected by the hurricane. However, a crisis could look different ways for different folks.”

She said regardless of whether it’s a Helene-related crisis or something related to employment, housing, a death or anything else, she wants Appalachian Community Relief to be able to be there to help provide relief wherever possible.

Hargus said she encourages those from outside of Western North Carolina to continue watching and helping.

“People should keep an eye on Western North Carolina because we're going to be here for the long-haul,” Hargus said. “But Western North Carolina folks are tapped.”

The nonprofit relies on donations to operate and Hargus said much of the donations come from the community they serve. A GoFundme campaign has raised more than $51,000 as of Jan. 30.

For more details, see their website at appalachiancommunityrelief.org.

“That’s really the biggest takeaway from this is that a community of neighbors created something that has had such an impact on thousands of lives,” Hargus said. “It’s been a really beautiful thing to be a part of.”

Karrigan Monk is the Swannanoa Valley communities reporter for Black Mountain News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at[email protected].