AVL Shares Space, the City of Asheville’s outdoor expansion program to help businesses add capacity during Covid-19, has been extended until January 3, 2021. AVL Shares Space includes curbside pickup zones throughout downtown, and expansions of private property, public property (sidewalk, on-street parking, parklets). The program has been instrumental for many downtown businesses.
The winter guidelines for temporary outdoor expansion spaces are available here. They include requirements for use of outdoor heaters, sides for tent/shade structures, outdoor lighting and additional maintenance considerations like snow and leaf removal. The guidelines also include staff contact information for questions and a frequently asked question section. City staff has been working directly with the Asheville Independent Restaurant Association (AIR) on this rollout and will continue providing one-on-one support to businesses as-needed.

In addition, the City is providing materials to assist with temporary parklet installation and has partnered with the American Institute of Architects Asheville (AIA) to improve accessibility into these spaces. Businesses owned or managed by people of color are especially encouraged to contact City staff for assistance.

Businesses and organizations can find applications for new temporary outdoor expansion and amend current applications with winterization changes through the City’s Development Portal here.

The public can provide feedback on these initiatives by emailing [email protected] and checking the project page for updates and input opportunities.

The City will make adjustments to the programs as-needed based on public health guidance, and will continue working with businesses and organizations to respond to critical needs, while considering new initiatives for the winter and spring and possible continuation of some opportunities longer term.

Discover the original Asheville Food Tour. In this premiere tour, taste the unique flavor of Asheville on our guided walking tours of the city’s culinary treasures, in historic downtown Asheville. Eating Asheville one bite at a time never tasted so good!

One of the nation’s premiere food destinations, Asheville boasts some of the most exciting and memorable food in the South. Asheville Food Tours offers a sumptuous glimpse into this exotic world of local Asheville restaurants and gourmet food shops and featuring artisan cheeses and choice meats from local farms, crusty baked breads from local ovens, rich hand-made chocolates, dynamic wine lists and hand-crafted local beer.

Downtown Food Tour – $55

West Asheville Tour – $60

International Tour – $60

Food Fan Foot Tour – $65

Saturday Brunch Tour – $65

Night Tour – $85

Gift Certificates –  $55 and up.

The BOOsters are happy little friendly ghosts sold throughout the month of October in area banks, restaurants, cleaners, convenience stores, and many other businesses. For only $1.00, anyone can purchase a BOOster, place his or her name or business card on it and have it displayed. This is a great way to decorate area businesses for the holiday while providing fun, friendly competition, and funds to help continue the outreach of the Eblen Charities.

Eblen Charitable Group Pumpkin Sales: Much like the BOOster sales, these bright paper pumpkins are sold for $1.00 during the month of October in area schools and Ingles Markets. This program sponsored by Outback Steakhouse, Ingle’s Markets, Pepsi, and Clear Channel radio stations benefits the programs of the Eblen Charities  and helps provide a community program to the area schools with the premise of children helping children. Schools also have the opportunity to win prizes and equipment for their school. The school with the most over all sales is awarded the Frank Lewis Memorial Award, named in memory of our long time friend and Buncombe County educator, Frank Lewis.

BMC@Home

From our home to yours: students and faculty share new concerts, living room recitals, and masterclasses.

BMC saxophone faculty members Joseph Lulloff and Henning Schröder share a new work, Saxology, by Marc Mellits. The piece was commissioned and recently premiered by the Arizona State University Saxophone Choir, including the Capitol Quartet, helíos_, and the Seyon Quartet.

BMC favorite Kelly Hall-Tompkins, violin, joins Donna Weng Friedman, piano, for a stunning performance of Nocturne by Lili Boulanger. The French composer lived from 1893-1918 and was the first female winner of the Prix de Rome prize in composition.

 by Tom Risser of Waxhaw, North Carolina

The Caldwell Arts Council and the City of Lenoir, NC seek sculptors to participate in Tucker’s Gallery, an outdoor sculpture sales gallery with three-dimensional artwork mounted in 12 pedestal-planters  in downtown Lenoir for up to one year.  Artists receive stipends for delivery and retrieval of sculptural art, and sculptures may be sold with 30% commission to the Caldwell Arts Council.

Find application at website.

Calling all spoken word artists 15 years or older

ABOUT WORDplay©

WORDplay© is a twelve month slam poetry competition featuring Spoken Word Poets from all over Western North Carolina. Each month ten to twelve Poets will be selected via video submissions, for the chance to compete for Different Strokes Performing Arts Collective’s WORDplay© championship and a $1,000.00 cash prize. The monthly online competition, hosted by local Poets Barbie Angell and Shanita Jackson, is open to regional Poets who are at least 15 years of age. One Poet from each month’s competition will be selected to compete in front of a live audience in the October and November 2021 Semi-Finals. Two remaining Poets will vie for the WORDplay© championship in December 2021. The second place Poet will receive $500.00. Each Semi-Finalist will receive $100.00.

We are accepting submissions for January and February rounds now through November 23, 2020. Selected Poets will be notified by December 23, 2020.

Flat Rock Playhouse is proud to partner with The Breath Project to create an archive of 8 minute and 46 second works of live theater from multidisciplinary theater artists of color who are responding to this moment in history. All submissions that meet the Breath Project guidelines will be featured in the archive, and as partners in the project, CJ Barnwell will be the curator from our theater who will help select pieces from the archive to feature in a virtual festival in Fall 2020. For those who do not have access to video recording equipment, the Playhouse is able to offer the use of the Mainstage and video recording support. If you are interested in recording on the Mainstage, please email [email protected].

To be considered for the Fall 2020 virtual festival, please submit your piece by Sept. 14, 2020. For more information on the submission process, the mission of the Breath Project and other partner theaters, visit www.thebreathproject2020.com.

This year’s winner will be drawn on Tuesday, December 1^st, and can choose any 2020 Volvo or Subaru from Hunter Automotive Group in Fletcher, North Carolina with an MSRP up to $50,000!

Though we were unable to have students on campus and present live performances this summer, we continued to support their education needs during the pandemic, providing masterclasses, lectures, streaming performances and more, available at no charge.

Buncombe County has opened the 2020-2021 application cycle of the Community Recreation Grants program. The grants are part of other countywide initiatives that help make Buncombe County a place everyone from infants to retirees has the opportunity to be strong, healthy, and successful. The program is intended to help community nonprofits make immediate improvements and jump-start long-term progress that align with the Buncombe 2025 plan. Grants range in amounts from $500-$6,000, depending on the number of qualifying applicants.

Eligibility

Eligible entities include Buncombe County nonprofits focused on providing equitable access to recreational, fitness, cultural, and wellness activities to the public at no- or low-cost. These funds are intended to be a leveraging tool that promote partnerships between the County and area nonprofits and are not a donation, funding stream, or sponsorship opportunity. Programs applying for funding should align with the Buncombe 2025 plan’s focus areas, as well as embody the spirt of Buncombe County Recreation Services’ mission: Connect Communities. Preserve Culture. Change Lives.

Projects funded in the past have included creative placemaking, increasing safe connections to a wider range of play and wellness activities for underserved residents, supporting access to experiences that preserve regional and international cultures, improvements to public athletic fields and fitness courses, expanding environmental education, building food security through community gardens, and establishing multigenerational outdoor spaces for neighbors to connect with each other and foster community pride.

Want to apply?

Application, guidelines, and a list of 2019-2020 recipients are available online. Questions should be directed to [email protected].

The grant application deadline is 5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 16, 2020. Late applications will not be accepted. The Community Recreation Grant Committee will notify all applicants via email no later than Friday, Nov. 15, 2020.

The message is simple – COVID-19 has made a severe impact on the blood supply and The
Blood Connection is asking the community to donate blood as soon as possible to support the
critical need of blood for local hospitals in this area.

To find a blood drive: https://donate.thebloodconnection.org/donor/schedules/zip
To find a center (5 in Upstate, 2 in Western NC): https://donate.thebloodconnection.org/donor/schedules/centers
Those interested in hosting a blood drive in the community: thebloodconnection.org/host-a-drive<http://thebloodconnection.org/host-a-drive>

Local restaurants like Five Guys are offering 20% of sales to fundraising groups who partner with them this November, December and January. With various public safety restrictions in place, restaurants are offering different types of fundraisers including:

• Takeout
• Curbside
• Delivery
• In-house

To set up a restaurant fundraiser for Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods just view Asheville restaurants giving back, select a location, a date and confirm online.

Find participating restaurants: https://www.groupraise.com/restaurants/search?lat=35.5950581&lng=-82.5514869&filters[tod]=true&grid_atype=email&grid_asource=hatch&grid_avalue=aW5mb0Bhc2hldmlsbGUuY29t&utm_source=hatch&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GM%3A%20CH_N1_V1&utm_content=a

Brevard Music Center: Staff Picks From Around the Web

Discover Alvin Ailey
Through “Revelations”
Join the Kennedy Center for a behind-the-scenes look at Revelations, Alvin Ailey’s dance masterwork.

Digital BMC

Selected past performances by BMC orchestras, faculty, and guest artists on YouTube, SoundCloud, and Open Air Brevard.

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9
III. Adagio molto e cantabile
Brevard Music Center Orchestra
Keith Lockhart, conductor
Recorded live on August 7, 2016,
at the Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium at the Brevard Music Center.

DVOŘÁK Cello Concerto
III. Finale. Allegro Moderato
Johannes Moser, cello
Brevard Music Center Orchestra • Keith Lockhart, conductor
Recorded on July 28, 2017,
at the Porter Center at Brevard College.

Brevard Music Center:

Staff Picks From Around the Web

Explore The Stars With
The October Night Sky
The Space Tourism Guide shares a list of must-sees this month, including a stunning meteor shower.

Through our efforts of informing Buncombe County about Reappraisal 2021 so far, we have received many questions from community members. So, we decided to compile them into this FAQ. Do you have more questions that aren’t covered here? You can email them to [email protected]. Otherwise, visit buncombecounty.org/MyValue2021 for everything you need to know about the reappraisal process.

WHY IS BUNCOMBE COUNTY REAPPRAISING PROPERTY?

North Carolina law requires counties to reappraise all real property once every eight years but also allows Counties to advance the reappraisal to less than eight years. Buncombe County Commissioners voted to conduct reappraisals every four years. The county must assess 127,000 parcels. The effective date of the reappraisal is Jan. 1, 2021.

The Asheville Independent Restaurant Association (AIR) is a group of independently owned restaurants that serve the flourishing food scene of Asheville, NC. As one of the largest organization of independent restaurants in the country, AIR is dedicated to keeping Asheville’s food scene eclectic, authentic and flavorful.

Please click below to view current Takeout/Delivery and Dine In options for Asheville’s Independent Restaurants. These lists are constantly changing and being updated so make sure to check back for what’s new. If you are a restaurant owner and need to update or add your restaurant, please email Jane Anderson at [email protected]

Thank you for supporting our independent restaurants!

Beginning Sunday, September 27, and continuing throughout the month of October, the front lawn of Grace Church will once again be filled with pumpkins! And as in years past, proceeds from pumpkin sales will benefit our friends with Consider Haiti.

Annually, the Pumpkin Patch is Consider Haiti’s biggest fundraiser. A year ago, we netted $10,000 that supported programs in community health, sustainable nutrition, clean water and medical care. Consider Haiti’s single most urgent goal is promoting the health and welfare of Haitian children. This year, they will impact the lives of more than 2,000 children and their families. Through the Pumpkin Patch, Grace Church has an opportunity to raise both funds and awareness for the work Consider Haiti is doing, even in the midst of a pandemic. We hope we have made participating as safe and risk-free as possible for you. And we thank you in advance for your on-going support.

For the safety of our volunteer sellers, we have developed a method of no-touch electronic payment that will hopefully eliminate a lot of cash transactions that involved handling money. Wheelbarrows will be on hand for shoppers to load their own pumpkin selections. The idea is to handle money and pumpkins as little as possible. Wipes, masks and disinfectant will be available for use as needed within the Patch

​​​​​

​One Network of Trails. One Hundred Counties.

​The Great Trails State Plan will draw upon existing plans and new recommendations to identify a network of shared-use paths and trails that connect​​​ every county in North Carolina, with a focus on connections between population centers and North Carolina State Parks.

The primary outcome of this planning process is to develop a statewide trail map coupled with an action-oriented network plan and 5-year implementation strategy.

The Great Trails State Plan is being led by the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Integrated Mobility Division, in coordination with the NCDOT Transportation Planning Division and North Carolina State Parks.​​​

Help us Win $100,000 for Urban Forestry Give during A Community Thrives’ fundraising window through October 16th and GreenWorks could receive a grant of up to $100,000! Your $10 donation will make an incredible difference! Asheville GreenWorks will continue to adapt and grow with the challenges of 2020, and beyond. We hope to give away and plant more trees to the community, collect more litter and recyclables, and engage and educate more volunteers. Your support encourages us to work harder for a better Buncombe County. If you are unable to give at this time, follow us on Facebook and Instagram and share this information with your family and friends.

Living Room Live Rebroadcasts
Relive this summer’s concerts from Living Room Live! Viewers can stream past performances by a wide variety of artists including harpsichordist Bridget Cunningham, violinist Rachel Podger, cellist Colin Alexander, pianist George X. Fu, and many more. Watch these programs anytime you want from home!

Create, share, and discover with Buncombe County Public Library’s newest resource, Biblioboard.

BiblioBoard Library is an easy-to-use platform of high-quality digital content. Biblioboard offers books, articles, documents, images, audios, and videos. BiblioBoard Library is host to content from traditional publishers, indie authors, cultural institutions, and local thought leaders. Users can access BiblioBoard Library through the library’s website or on the device of their choice.

Some features of Biblioboard:

• No waitlists or holds
• Streaming audio and video are available on a wide variety of topics
• Check out curated collections of the best indie authors.
• Available for desktop, iOS, and Android devices

Local authors can submit their work for inclusion in the library catalog or publish books with Press Books. You can submit and share your work locally or nationally.

The N.C. Department of Transportation wants your feedback for the NC Moves 2050 Plan, NCDOT’s update to the state’s long-range transportation plan. Participate by November 9 to provide comments on the recommended actions designed to provide a responsive, connected and inclusive transportation system. Your feedback will help guide North Carolina’s future transportation policies and investments. Take the quick survey.

Persons who do not speak English or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English may receive interpretive services by calling 1-800-481-6494.

Vulnerable North Carolinians can request free PPE as they head to the polls.

We are all in this together.

In response to the unique economic challenges of COVID-19, a consortium of public, private, and nonprofit partners have come together and launched an innovative recovery-lending program to help support entrepreneurs like you and stabilize North Carolina’s small business sector.

BallotTrax by i3Logix is a unique, patent-pending solution that tracks the status of every mail-in ballot and sends a series of proactive alerts to voters telling them where their ballot is in the election process from printed to accepted! This gives voters peace of mind knowing their vote remains private and has been counted!

Pandemic Arts is a series “where performing artists from various genres discuss how the global pandemic is affecting their careers, their creativity, their finances, and their plans for the future.” The FRP episode is live and features a candid interview with Lisa K. Bryant about the history of the Playhouse and the challenges of running a theatre during the COVID-19 pandemic. You’ll also see performances by beloved Vagabonds Matthew Glover, Bill Muñoz, and Scott Treadway. Click here to watch the video!