Food Scraps Drop Off

The City of Asheville, in partnership with Buncombe County and the Natural Resources Defense Council, is offering a FREE Food Scrap Drop-Off program in

two locations for all Buncombe County residents.  This organic matter will be collected and turned into good clean compost, keeping it OUT of our landfill and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Register for Food Scraps Drop Off

Need a handy kitchen countertop food scrap bin?  Let us know on the registration form! We’ll be having bin giveaways at city and county facilities and would love to give you one.

Locations

West Asheville Library – “Food Scrap Bin Shelters” on the south side of the building

942 Haywood Road, Asheville

Library open hours

Stephens-Lee Recreation Center “Food Scrap Shed” next to the Community Garden on the North side of the parking lot

30 Washington Carver Avenue, Asheville

• • Monday – Friday, 7 a.m. – 6 p.m.
  • Saturday, 8 a.m. – 2 p.m.
  • Sunday, 12 – 4 p.m.

Murphy Oakley Community Center and Library – “Food Scrap Bin Shelters” on the east side of the parking lot

749 Fairview Road, Asheville

• • Dawn – Dusk

Buncombe County Landfill – Convenience Center85 Panther Branch Road, Alexander

• • • • Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
      • Saturday, 8 a.m. – 12:30 pm

The Knitters and Stitchers are back!  Join us for a morning of crafting and conversation.  This is not an instructional group, but newcomers are most welcome.  Pre-registration is not required.  Come ready to meet fun people!

Join QuickBooks Certified Pro Advisor, Candy Williams, as she helps you to understand bookkeeping concepts for your small business.

Explore Biltmore House with an Audio Guide that introduces you to the Vanderbilt family and their magnificent home’s history, architecture, and collections of fine art and furnishings.

PLUS: Immersive, multi-sensory Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius exhibition created and produced by Grande Experiences

PLUS: FREE next-day access to Biltmore’s Gardens and Grounds

This visit includes access to:

• Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius at Amherst at Deerpark®
• 8,000 Acres of Gardens and Grounds for two consecutive days
• Antler Hill Village & Winery
• Complimentary Wine Tastings at the Winery
• Tastings require a Day-of-Visit Reservation, which can be made by:
  • Scanning the QR Code found in your Estate Guide
  • Visiting any Guest Services location
• Complimentary parking

Art Exhibition: Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius

Immerse yourself in the world’s most comprehensive and thrilling Da Vinci experience as his brilliance and extraordinary achievements are brought to vivid life!

Tracey Morgan Gallery is pleased to present landmarks, an exhibition of new work by photographer Colby Caldwell. On view are large-scale, wax coated color photographic prints of elements from the natural world abstracted by digital interventions. Paired with these are small, meditative photographs taken from the forest floor of bright skies framed by treetops. In his most recent work, Caldwell explores the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains collecting what could be thought of as visual “field recordings.” Using a flatbed scanner as a makeshift camera, Caldwell documents what he encounters on his wanderings: decomposing leaves, moss, lichen, tree bark. The resulting images are punctuated by digital interferences – unnatural hues of pinks, reds, and greens, swaths of pixilation, and large streaks where the scanner attempts and fails to “accurately” record information. Caldwell asks us to examine often overlooked details from the forest floor in a new view, not shying from the digital idiosyncrasies inherent in the process of scanning 3-dimensional objects on a flat surface. Where much of Caldwell’s previous work has included bringing nature into his studio, this series flips the script in a unique examination of technology’s place in the natural world. The work pushes at the parameters of traditional, photo historical nature specimen documentation. Caldwell is less interested in precisely cataloging samples, and more interested in investigating which tools we use to do so. The work additionally looks at how history is held within the landscape, and the ways humans have appropriated the land, contested its ownership, and used it for sustenance. Caldwell’s unconventional, experimental methodology of documentation seems to be pointing to the many ways these histories have been obscured, and the way our connection to nature has changed in the contemporary digital era. Colby Caldwell (American, born 1965), once a student of history, has tested virtually every avenue of the personal uses of photography as an instrument of memory. While his early work replicated the theatrical feeling of 19th Century “drawing with light,” his most recent efforts deconstruct the very elements of digital photography. Caldwell has held teaching positions at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC; St. Mary’s College of Maryland; and currently at Warren Wilson College, Swannanoa, NC. His work is included in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC; and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA. Caldwell received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Corcoran College of Art + Design in 1990. Recent solo exhibitions include Selu Songs at the Radford Art Museum in early 2022. He was featured in the book Art of the State, published November 2022, which surveys contemporary art in his home state of North Carolina. He currently lives and works in Asheville, NC.

• The Land of the Sky Association of REALTORS (LOTSAR) will host a series of clinics to help residents of Buncombe County understand their property values. Volunteer realtors will be available to show residents their property cards, look at comparable properties, and provide information about the property value appeal process and available tax relief programs.
  • Thursday, Jan. 12 from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. at the Weaverville Public Library, 41 N. Main St., Weaverville, NC
  • Saturday, Jan. 21 from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Call-in event (use either phone line) 828-767-5398 or 828-712-3748
  • Tuesday, Jan. 24 from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. at the Skyland Public Library, 260 Overlook Road, Asheville, NC
  • Thursday, Jan. 26 from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. at Ingles (Leicester Highway), 575 New Leicester Highway, Asheville, NC
  • Tuesday, Feb. 7 from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. at Ingles (Black Mountain), 550 NC9 Highway, Black Mountain, NC

  If you can’t make a clinic in person, you can call in during these times to be connected directly to an expert for help with your questions: 828-767-5398 or 828-712-3748.

  More information about these events can be found here.

  The appeal clinics coincide with the property listing period for Buncombe County. Volunteers from LOTSAR can help residents understand how the market has affected their property value and connect them to programs for filing extensions, accessing payment plans, and accessing property tax relief programs for veterans, anyone age 65 and older, or anyone permanently disabled under NCGS 105-277.

  Legal assistance will be available for those who qualify from Pisgah Legal Services, and staff at these events can connect eligible residents with an application for suppo

We are seeking volunteers to assist us in our small after school program for children in West Asheville in low-income housing.  We provide a safe and nourishing environment, healthy snacks, and creative activities.  Our program currently meets during the school year on most Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 3:00-5:00pm. You may volunteer for one or two days a week. 

Volunteer Responsibilities:

• Assist with serving snacks
• Interact with children during activity time
• Supervise games and outdoor free time
• For people with background in education, there is also an opportunity to assist with curriculum development and program planning and administration

Requirements:

• Background check
• Orientation booklets will be provided
• Masks are required if unvaccinated

Join us for an educational program with the North Carolina Arboretum to explore the unique features and diversity of local birds! Have you ever wondered what birds do in winter – which stay and which travel far away? We’ll have the answers to this and many other questions at our free program. Come ready to hear about the ecoEXPLORE, learn about a few WNC bird species, and try to spot birds living around the library.

Eco-Explore programs are intended for kids ages 5 to 12 to get to know the outdoors and participate in citizen science. We also have Eco-Explore backpacks at the Library with kid-friendly technology that you can check out with your library card. Any question? Contact the Enka-Candler Library at (828) 250-4758 or email them here. We look forward to seeing you at the library!

WNC Repair Cafe is offering several full service repair events in collaboration with the Asheville Tool Library at Smith Mill Works in 2023. The Asheville Tool Library is a non-profit serving more than 600 members with over 2000 tools. Their mission is to provide low-cost access to a wide range of tools, literature, and knowledge to citizens of Western North Carolina through sliding scale and sponsored memberships.

The Tool Library began as a 100% volunteer-run non-profit and they still provide a wide range of volunteer opportunities. However, their growth has allowed them to start offering living wage employment. Since starting in 2015, the Asheville Tool Library has grown to serve their community with the simple necessities like lawn mowers and circular saws, as well as more unique tools like camping equipment, a wood splitter, and even a guitar. The Tool Library moved into a new location in October 2022, expanding to 2000 sq ft of space for tools, workshops, tools sales, and community events.

Since 2017, WNC Repair Cafe has been organizing Repair Cafes in the Hendersonville and Asheville areas.  A Repair Cafe is an event where volunteers with tools and supplies provide hands-on help to fix broken household objects at no cost while helping patrons develop the confidence and skills to make their own repairs in the future.

At each event, the public is invited to bring in anything from their homes for repair.  Small appliances, lamps, furniture, tools, small engines, and even cherished family heirlooms are all welcome at Repair Cafe events.  While the volunteers have been recruited as specialists in certain areas, the scope of the repairs is limited only by the imagination of the patrons; if an item is broken or damaged, volunteers at the Repair Cafe will try their best to fix it.

Repair Cafes appeal to patrons because they are free and they promote environmental stewardship as well as thriftiness.  Repair Cafes are a way to keep objects out of landfills and give them new life.  Some patrons have heirloom objects they don’t know where to turn for help repairing- WNC Repair Cafe can help!  In the context of a consumer-debt driven economy and throw-away culture, Repair Cafes are all about building resilience, sustainability, and community.

Within the communities served, Repair Cafes offer a place to practice resistance to that throwaway culture and have nuanced conversations about resilience, sustainability, and grassroots organizing surrounding resilience and sustainability.  At Repair Cafes, skills are shared and patrons are assisted in determining whether they should repair or replace their items.

Repair Cafes prevent household goods from ending up in landfills while simultaneously saving patrons money and helping them to develop the confidence to take on future repairs on their own or with help from a future Repair Cafe event.

Volunteers with technical skills that are not always seen as valuable have an opportunity to give back to their communities by passing on their knowledge to those who can appreciate and benefit from it.   A shift away from throwaway culture emboldens professional repair shops and helps create markets for spare parts.  Participating in Repair Cafe events may even lead consumers to demand products that are built to last.

If you would like more information about The Asheville Tool Library, please call Stephanie Kane at 216-577-1408 or email [email protected].

For more information about WNC Repair Cafe, send an email to Dan Hettinger at [email protected] or visit https://wncrepaircafe.blogspot.com/ or the WNC Repair Cafe Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/WNCRepairCafe/ ).

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Come and join us for our next mixer! Note: we are gathering at ZILLICOAH BEER COMPANY down on the river for this one.

Fight your cabin fever and come out and socialize with all the new members of our group! (350 and growing) We will meet inside by the main taproom. Look for the AVL International Connections’ signs on the tables. Grab a beverage (they have great beers but also lots of alcoholic and N/A options as well). The Taqueria Munoz Food Truck will also be out front if anyone wants a bite to eat!

As a growing group, if you have friends that you would like to bring along, please do! Also encourage them to sign up on Meetup!

Great news for poets and poetry lovers: Dark City Poet’s Society is returning to the Black Mountain Library. DCPS is a completely free poetry group that is open to poets of all ages and experience levels. Join us at the Black Mountain Library from 6-7:30 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month for our (respectful) critique group. DCPS will meet at BAD Craft from 6-7 p.m. on the third Tuesday for our monthly open mic Poetry Night. Find out more on Instagram @darkcitypoetssociety or contact the Black Mountain Library.

Small fruits can be a strategic avenue for diversifying farm income streams. This workshop will cover basic production information on a variety of small fruits suitable for commercial production. Participants will learn how to assess a site’s suitability for fruit production, review production requirements for a variety of berries, and evaluate potential marketing channels.

IMPORTANT: This workshop will feature a hybrid format, covering two days of instruction:

(Day 1) Tuesday, February 7, from 6pm – 8pm – Online workshop via Zoom

(Day 2) Thursday, February 9th from 1pm – 3pm – In-person, hands-on pruning demonstration at a local Buncombe County farm

Participants are encouraged, but not required, to attend both days, as each will feature different types of information.

Please contact Meghan Baker at [email protected] for details, questions, or comments.

This is a hybrid event, meaning there is an option to attend virtually and a limited number of seats are available to attend the event in-store. The event is free but registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance. 

Please click here to register for the VIRTUAL event. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event.

Please click here to register for the IN-PERSON event. Note the important event details on the RSVP form.

This event includes a book signing. If you would like a signed book but can’t attend in person, use the order comments field when you order below to request a signed copy and tell us to whom the book should be personalized.

If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!

Twelve-year-old Enly Wu Lewis is determined to go to band camp and follow in the footsteps of his musician father, who died years ago. But his mom, a single parent working two jobs, is saving every penny for his older brother’s college tuition. So Enly sets out to earn the money for camp on his own, by busking with an obscure instrument he can only kind of play. When someone drops a winning scratch-off lottery ticket into his tip box, Enly thinks it’s the answer to his problems–but he’ll have to overcome teenage thieves and his own family if he wants to achieve his dreams.

Jennie Liu is the daughter of Chinese immigrants. She has been fascinated by the attitudes, social policies, and changes in China each time she visits. Her young adult novels have won honors including a Freeman Book Award Honorable Mention and an In the Margins: Best Books for Teens award . She lives in North Carolina with her family.

Free hybrid event with an option to attend virtually and a limited number of seats available to attend the in-store. Registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance. Jennie Liu launches her middle grade novel, “Enly and the Buskin’ Blues” about twelve-year-old Enly Wu Lewis, who sets out to earn the money for music camp on his own, by busking with an obscure instrument he can only kind of play.

WILD (Women in Lively Discussion) Book Club

The contributions to the music industry from guitarist/vocalist Tom Rush have spanned more than 50 years and touched the lives of such iconic performers as James Taylor, Garth Brooks, Joni Mitchell, and Jackson Browne. Coupled with award-winning songwriter, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, Matt Nakoa, this powerhouse duo will fill Parker Concert Hall with melancholy ballads and gritty blues dappled with a bit of humor, of which Rush often brings to the stage.

Sponsors: Alan and Nora Winchester

White Horse’s legendary Open Mic takes place each and every Tuesday at 7pm.

You’ll hear a variety of wonderfully talented folks on their way up. You never know what you’ll hear… original songs, covers, guitar, piano….. and often something quite surprising.

The signup sheet is placed on the bar at 6:30 and the first ten to sign in are the performers for the evening. Each gets 15 minutes or three songs.

It’s a lot of fun… especially since it’s FREE !!!!!

– ALL AGES
– FULLY SEATED SHOW
– LIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLE

HANK, PATTIE AND THE CURRENT

Bluegrass visionaries Hank Smith (banjo) and Pattie Hopkins Kinlaw’s (fiddle) innovative twist on traditional bluegrass music is a soulful brew flavored with classical, Motown, jazz, and pop influences. Joined by Billie Feather on guitar and Stevie Martinez on bass, this dynamic, North Carolina based group is performing in support of their fifth album, LETTERS, out now on Robust Records.

BREK

Brek is an acoustic band from Iceland that mainly plays original, folky music with influences from various sources. The band members focus on creating an interesting but cozy atmosphere in their playing. In addition there is a focus on the multifaceted use of the Icelandic language in the band’s lyrics. Brek released its self-titled debut album in the summer of 2021 and received the Icelandic Music Awards for Folk album of the year as well as being featured as Album of the week on Iceland National Radio – Rás 2 in early 2022.