On July 30-31, 2025, we gathered 200 folks from 120 organizations within our community of responders in Black Mountain, NC, for the inaugural Resilience Fest. Not quite a conference and more than just a festival, this event brought together individuals and organizations with firsthand experience in sustainable, community-based disaster response and recovery. We met, laughed, cried, learned, danced, trained, shared, and prepared. 

Before, powering Broad River Fire Department's Shumont Substation during outages meant relying on loud, polluting gas generators that needed constant refueling. Now, a solar microgrid powers the station and has created a resilience hub that's no longer reliant on the main electrical grid or gas generators. Community members can rest assured that they have a reliable place to go for clean water, emergency communications, and refuge when facing a natural disaster. Solar power serves as an integral tool to keep the fire department up and running.

Headquartered in Metairie, Louisiana, Footprint Project deeply engages with the vibrant communities of the Greater New Orleans area. From this base, we also serve the entire Gulf Coast region and support our team and partners throughout the U.S. and Caribbean. In 2025, we strengthened and expanded our partnerships, focusing on:

• Beehive Microgrids™ and Transfer Switches

• STEM Education + Community Engagement

• Serving as Footprint Project’s headquarters to support all of our other regions and programs

After Hurricane Helene in 2024, our rapid response program (and the partnerships we built within it) inspired the state of North Carolina to deeply invest in our unique model of resilience. In early 2025, we hired 5, new full-time staff and moved into our brand-new Appalachia Regional Hub in Mars Hill, NC. Now, our local team is simultaneously doing the very hard work of long-term recovery with individuals still struggling from Helene and driving forward innovation through the development of Beehive Microgrids. We have been transitioning sites from temporary, emergency power in the immediate Helene aftermath to permanent systems they’ll have ahead of the next storm. This full-circle climate resilience is something we’ve been working towards since the beginning.

For those of you following our work in community resilience, you may have wondered what we’ve been up to. At Footprint Project, our work extends to many community projects outside of our Western North Carolina Solar Free Store. If you’ve been waiting for our WNC Solar Free Store to open again, we appreciate your patience! Here is just a small fraction of what our tight-knit team has been working on.

As we continue to grapple with the long-term impact of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina, we take time to reflect on what community resilience looks like and how we can best serve them.

After months of designing and building, we recently met up with worker-owned cooperative Chispas at their headquarters in Asheville, NC to deliver a new solar trailer. While sharing some amazing food, our team trained Chispas members to use the trailer to power essentials under blue or grey skies.

As the first major storm of 2026, Winter Storm Fern has kept us busy here at Footprint Project! We hope that everyone who has been impacted by the ice, snow and cold temperatures stays safe and has received help as soon as possible.

On September 22, 2024, Hurricane Helene emerged in the Caribbean Sea, rapidly intensifying into a devastating Category 4 storm aimed at Florida and later impacting six states, particularly wreaking havoc in North Carolina. Our team mobilized quickly, deploying renewable energy solutions and establishing essential support hubs to aid communities in desperate need.

On September 22, 2024, Hurricane Helene emerged in the Caribbean Sea, rapidly intensifying into a devastating Category 4 storm aimed at Florida and later impacting six states, particularly wreaking havoc in North Carolina. Our team mobilized quickly, deploying renewable energy solutions and establishing essential support hubs to aid communities in desperate need.

When was the last time your power went out? I don’t mean those split second events, almost imperceptible but for your blinking microwave clock. I’m talking about a day or a week or a month or more without electricity. Whatever’s in your refrigerator is going bad.

Disasters exacerbate disparities. From Hurricane Katrina to the pandemic to Hurricane Ida, food insecurity is perpetuated by New Orleans’ high rates of poverty and vulnerability to extreme weather events.