Much of the economic attention in post-Helene Western North Carolina is focused on small businesses — but they are not the only sector struggling across the region. For nonprofit organizations in the mountains, the past 12 months have been heavy, complex and transformative.
Yesica Miranda runs El Centro, a community center for the Latino population in Brevard. After Helene, her Transylvania County organization was transformed into a frontline disaster relief organization.
“We haven’t done anything like this before,” Miranda told Carolina Public Press.
“We only did educational stuff or translation. We went from being a community center that did after school programming to literally just doing anything and everything we could do to help the families.”
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Outside Brevard, a mobile home park where 33 Latino families lived was all but destroyed. One year later, eight of those families still don’t have a permanent home. Much of Miranda’s focus has been on them.
More than half of nonprofits in the region pivoted to disaster relief and recovery work, according to a report commissioned by WNC Nonprofit Pathways and Dogwood Health Trust.
Arts AVL, for example, became an information, coordination and advocacy hub for artists in the region. More than 585 cultural assets in Asheville alone were affected by the storm — nearly 40% of venues, studios and festivals.
Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project became a similar hub for farmers, 90% of whom experienced physical damage from the storm.
Sistas Caring 4 Sistas, a Black-led doula care nonprofit, collected diapers, formula and other supplies and resources for the moms they serve.
These organizations were well-positioned to pivot to disaster relief — they are connected with the groups they serve and understand their needs. But that doesn’t mean it’s been easy.
“The promise of nonprofits is to provide direct services that put community needs front and center,” Jeannette Butterworth, director of WNC Nonprofit Pathways, told CPP.
“Now, these organizations are stretched — not just in what they are providing the community, but for each and every person in a nonprofit.”
Nonprofit staff struggles
Staff capacity is the greatest ongoing obstacle for these organizations, according to the Pathways report. About half of the nonprofit respondents to the report said staff burnout is complicating the recovery process.
That’s certainly Miranda’s experience.
“I’m doing it all, and it’s a lot,” Miranda said. “I don’t have the capacity to continue to do it. I just feel like moving on.”
The farmers that Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project works with, for example, aren’t just random people whom staff can go home and forget about at the end of the day: these farmers are folks whom staff members know and care about. It’s been hard for executive director Molly Nicholie to separate herself and her relationships from the work, she said.
Plus, the staff at these nonprofits often experienced the traumatic impacts of Helene alongside the communities they support.
“We weren’t prepared for this,” said Chavaun Letman, director of operations at Sistas Caring 4 Sistas. “We were completely focused on serving the needs of other people. We didn’t really take time to process as a team: what is going on? What are we enduring?”
Six in 10 nonprofits experienced damage to their physical location, according to the Pathways report. Sistas Caring 4 Sistas was one of the lucky ones.
“You count your blessings, but that devastation is not far from you,” Letman said. “You can go right up the street and see this devastation. You’re not removed from it. You’re in gratitude, but you’re in a state of trauma as well.”
That’s where the nonprofit Resources for Resilience comes in: helping the helpers. They lead educational workshops on how to deal with and process stress and trauma in the workplace.
Helene produced intense amounts of stress for first responders, educators and health care professionals in particular. Many of these folks weren’t over the ordeal of COVID when Helene struck, said Ann DuPre Rogers, executive director of Resources for Resilience.
Rogers likens the experience of Helene to “too much too fast,” and of COVID to “too little too long.” Each kind of trauma has its own deleterious effects, she said.
“People are working so hard and are committed to continuing to help this community heal and rebuild,” Rogers said.
“But you can tell people are tired. People are struggling, they aren’t sleeping well, they’re anxious, their heads hurt. And with the anniversary passing, I think many people are feeling extra sensitive.”
Where’s the money?
For many of nonprofit organizations, Helene relief money is either entirely gone or quickly running out.
Miranda would like to hire a case manager at El Centro for the remaining struggling families, but she doesn’t have the money to do so. Letman is out of money for utility and rent assistance for the moms she serves. Arts AVL described their financial reality as “sobering.”
Rogers at Resources for Resiliences says she is watching the organization’s bank account drain. “The work of healing and rebuilding won’t be finished by next spring, but the funding might be,” Rogers said.
“The greater world has moved on. They are not thinking about Helene. There’ve been other disasters, other things to turn their attention to. That pouring out of financial support is not still happening one year later.”
The profound uncertainty of federal and state funding streams is yet another tough financial reality for nonprofit organizations. The Pathways report showed that more than half of Western North Carolina’s nonprofits have been impacted by federal policy shifts this year.
At Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, the end of state and federal local food purchase assistance programs is a major financial wrench.
“We are going from a very resource-rich environment to one of very restricted and limited funding,” Nicholie said.
“We’re going to have to make hard choices around which programs get funded and which don’t. It makes it very difficult to plan.”
There is so much contributing to these uneasy feelings for the nonprofit sector in the mountains: drying up of Helene funds, state and federal policy shifts, lack of staff capacity, and collective trauma.
“It creates an atmosphere of fear,” said Susan Mims, president of Dogwood Health Trust, “for the longevity of these organizations and the ability to continue their dedicated service.”
