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.

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.

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.