Please join us at the Hickory Nut Gap Farm Big Barn, hosted with Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy on Saturday October 26th for a free community event, a Barn Dance & Volunteer Fair! We NEED THIS. Take some time to relax and unwind from recovery efforts, AND help sustain and support WNC’s farmers, towns, hills and hollers for months to come.

The event is in the Big Barn from 12pm-6pm, and our Farm Store is open for business!

– Free Live music 1pm-5pm and dancing with local youth band the Lucky Buckeyes & our favorite square dance squallers, the Old Charlotte Highwaymen.
– Cretaceously craveable eats by Grush’s Cajun Dino Grill.
– Beer proceeds will go to ASAP Farmers’ Emergency Relief Fund.
– We will have a Funding Wall, full of posters with QR codes linking attendees directly to organizations, local businesses, families and friends who need our community’s financial help to stay afloat and rebuild.
– Local pumpkins, squash, apples, fresh pressed cider and seasonal offerings are back!
– Hay Rides & Pony rides 11am-4pm, proceeds benefit Project HNG!

Right now the big picture of what our region is facing is still being painted – community spirit is high, neighbors across the country are flying, driving, running, emailing and calling in with their time, talent and treasure. But the locals know, we’re in this for the long haul – we need volunteers to commit regularly for months to come. To dispense resources to the communities who can’t get to them, to flush toilets for citizens who don’t have the strength, to gut homes that just can’t house anyone right now. The messy, heart-rending business of rebuilding our lives in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

We will be hosting an ongoing Volunteer Fair for all of you wonderful non-profits, local farms and gardens, community-organized groups, local businesses-turned-emergency-community-hubs, and more. We hear you have the resources, you just need the helping hand. Please contact megan.auten@hickorynutgap.com to send a volunteer or staff member to table at this event. It’s a great chance to get attendees acquainted with who you are and how important your mission is, and get them to sign up right there and then for weeks and months to come.

HNG has WIFI thanks to a generously donated Starlink, so attendees can pull up their calendars as they walk from table to table. We will also provide paper calendars so they can pin their schedule to the wall or the fridge.

If you have a group you feel like could use some support, whether from donation or volunteer work, please contact megan.auten@hickorynutgap.com they will be added to our invite list and our Funding Wall – we hope to see you then, on Saturday 10/26 for a little fun, a little togetherness and a lot of hope.