Western North Carolina’s Hidden Lifeline

Hidden in the Blue Ridge Mountains along a winding road leading to Lake Lure lies the Hickory Nut Gorge Outreach. A food pantry that has been up and operating since 2004. Only now accessible through one main road that takes you through deep Appalachian country. The Outreach has been ramping up, especially after Hurricane Helene.

The shelves are lined with canned foods, paper products, toiletries, and many other things one may need. Racks of clothes, ranging from kids’ to adults, are layered around the store. Boxes of toys and books line the walls. Normally, the Outreach doesn’t specialize in clothing or toys, but the outpouring of local support made it possible. 

“We assume everyone who comes in here has a need,” said Karen King, outreach president. “No questions asked.”

Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina on Sept. 27, 2024. Hurricane winds and rains sent a 27-foot wall of water down the river, tearing away homes and the earth, leaving remnants of a community that once thrived.

Lake Lure was completely flooded with debris, and the towns of Bat Cave and Chimney Rock were inaccessible to the public as of April 2025, when a team of student journalists from Media Milwaukee traveled there.

The Outreach’s mission is to help eliminate hunger and provide emergency services with love and compassion to those in need who live in our community. They are currently open three days a week and serve anyone who comes in. Reporters talked with Karen King, the office manager and president of the Outreach.

“We don’t ask for any proof of residence,” said King. “We serve portions of four different counties: Henderson, Pope, Rutherford, and Buncombe.”

Unfortunately, what was once a quick 30-minute drive has turned into an over-hour-long route for many. Highway 64/78A was washed away by the French Broad River during Hurricane Helene. 

Due to the road closures, reaching Hickory Gorge has become a lot harder. “Many families and individuals in need have been unable to reach the Outreach,” said King. “Still to this day, people will come in and say, ‘Oh, I thought you were washed away.’” 

Normally the outreach focuses on 100 families a month. Families can come in once every 30 days for food and supplies. Before the hurricane, clothing was not an option for families to chose from. But the donations from the community and surrounding communities made it possible for clothing, toys and other supplies to be shared.

“I came in one day, and the whole front of the building was lined with big black trash bags of clothes,” said King. “We had so much stuff that we had a guy who lent us a 28-foot trailer so we could store all the stuff in there.”

The Outreach also provides supplies that SNAP benefits don’t cover, such as paper products, personal care, and cleaning products. 

They also do not receive any federal funding, so local donations help keep the outreach going. King told us that the Outreach receives a lot of local donations to keep it running the way it is. 

The need is strong in Western North Carolina. Community takes different forms. Whether that be through the outreach or neighborly ties. Reporters in Swannanoa, about an hour apart,  talked to many individuals who were reliant on that need for community. 

“There was no help, no government, no nothing,” said Steve Crowell, a Swannanoa resident. “We were feeding each other what was left in our freezers before it went bad. We were the ones who cleaned the roads, started donation centers, camped at the school, and neighbors came out and gave us food. If it wasn’t for them, I would’ve died.”

The communities around Lake Lure are currently rebuilding, which means the roads are rebuilding as well. In the town of Chimney Rock, which is not much farther down the road, they are planning to reopen the highway soon.

While a new stretch of Highway 9 connecting Bat Cave and Chimney Rock is open, the public access to Chimney Rock State Park via the main bridge is expected to be restored by Memorial Day, weather permitting. The full village is expected to reopen partially this summer, with many businesses hoping to open within a few months, according to WYFF. 

Carter Evenson contributed to this story.

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This story is part of a semester-long investigative reporting project into the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. It was created by an advanced reporting class in the Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies program at UW-Milwaukee. Other stories from the project are available here.

This work was made possible through the support of MPC Endowment Ltd., the philanthropic affiliate of the Milwaukee Press Club.