Tim Love, Buncombe County’s director of intergovernmental relations, said that roughly 75% of individuals seeking assistance from the One Buncombe Fund had been employed in the hospitality industry. Of those requests, he added, the vast majority were for support to maintain rent or mortgage payments.
As coordinator of Bountiful Cities’ Asheville Buncombe Community Garden Network, Whitaker manages communication, educational programming and resources such as free seed and tool libraries for more than two dozen local gardening efforts. And after COVID-19 began impacting life in Western North Carolina, he’s seen an increase in the number of local residents interested in starting new community gardens.
Under the watchful eye of Mission Hospital security, several nurses involved with the push to unionize their colleagues demonstrated during the 6 p.m. shift change on April 9. Their signs and conversations with other staff members questioned the availability of personal protective equipment and training to deal with the COVID-19 threat — and how a union might increase their safety.
