By Elizabeth Ouzts for Energy News Network.
Broadcast version by Shanteya Hudson for North Carolina News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

As the first frost visits the mountains of western North Carolina, thousands of households are bracing themselves. Thinly insulated manufactured homes will provide little barrier to the cold. Gaps around doorways will invite it in. Old furnaces, if they work at all, will consume already strained monthly budgets.

A lucky fraction of these families will benefit from a flood of federal weatherization dollars headed to the state thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law passed two years ago.

But for Buncombe County residents who don’t or can’t take advantage of the decades-old Weatherization Assistance Program, there’s an innovative nonprofit in Asheville working to fill the gaps.

Since 2017, Energy Savers Network has helped some 1,000 households cut down on energy waste by tightening air seals, adding DIY storm windows, and performing other upgrades at no cost to occupants.

Designed to help complement, not supplant, federal weatherization funds, the project’s success is due in part to its speed and simplicity. And its track record has earned it a prominent place in Buncombe and Asheville’s plans for 100% renewable energy. 

“By embracing local, clean energy sources, going electric and saving energy,” said Buncombe County Council Chairperson Brownie Newman, in a press release, “we’re taking essential steps toward combating the climate crisis while ensuring a just transition for all residents.”

Distributed largely by community action agencies formed during the War on Poverty, weatherization assistance has evolved to become one of the federal government’s most successful energy efficiency programs, helping some 7 million low-income households nationwide reduce energy waste since 1976. 

But deploying assistance still presents a host of challenges: identifying potential recipients and earning their trust, hiring and training the workers who can perform the work, and remediating homes with immediate health and safety repair needs. Clients-to-be in Buncombe County may spend a year or more on a waitlist. 

Though southwestern North Carolina is set to receive $4.8 million over five years as part of the state’s $90 million share of the infrastructure law, just 440 single-family households are expected to benefit over the 13-county region. 

With some 18,000 families living in energy-inefficient manufactured homes in Buncombe County alone, the demand for energy efficiency upgrades far exceeds the supply of assistance. 

That’s where Energy Savers Network comes in. The concept began 100 miles west in Hayesville, where members of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church “answered a combined moral calling to help the poor and be good stewards of Creation,” Interfaith Power and Light wrote.

The team of parishioners and other volunteers helped families cut their energy use by 10% to 20% — first conducting an audit, then tracking down free or low-cost materials, and finally performing simple upgrades like replacing lighting or adding weather stripping free of charge.

When church member Brad Rouse, a one-time financial and utility consultant, decided to devote his time to climate causes and move to Asheville, he brought Good Shepherd’s idea with him.

Today, the Energy Savers project is staffed by a small team at the Green Built Alliance, but the volunteer spirit and the simplicity remain. 

At farmers’ markets, community events, and through word of mouth, potential clients indicate interest. Staff then follow up to ensure they meet the income guidelines and can otherwise benefit from energy efficiency upgrades. 

“We do a lot of the intake over the phone,” said Hannah Egan, the project’s outreach and resource manager, “explaining what we might be doing, what we need from them, how long the appointment could last.”

A visit is scheduled. A staff person and two to three volunteers arrive and do what they can accomplish in a day. “Once we’ve qualified the client over the phone, we just go there with our crew,” Egan said. “It’s just a lot easier to do it all in one go.” 

They seal air leaks. They replace lightbulbs, insulate hot water heaters, and reinforce single-paned windows. “And then more as we see fit,” Egan said, “because every home is different. Our goal with that is to make homes more comfortable, reduce their energy usage and their utility bills.”

On average, the improvements help occupants cut energy use about 15%, fueling a virtuous cycle. “A lot of times, when we do get in their homes,” Egan said, “they’re really happy with the work we do,” prompting friend and family referrals. “That’s been a main source of client recruitment since COVID.” 

Hiring building performance expert Kelvin Bonilla onto the Energy Savers team, Egan said, “drastically improved the quality of our work.” A native of Honduras, Bonilla has also helped spread the word to the county’s sizable Spanish-speaking community.

“He’s a really good people person,” Egan said. “He’s very professional, and he knows how far to go and when to stop.” 

Many times, Energy Savers refers clients to Community Action Opportunities, the local provider of weatherization assistance. In some cases, they can return to repair or replace ailing furnaces with high-efficiency heat pumps. Dogwood Health Trust also funds minor home repairs, such as replacing a door or damaged flooring.

With additional support from Duke Energy, the city and the county, the team serves roughly four households a week and nearly 200 a year. From start to finish, the process takes between two and six weeks. 

Moving forward, the hope is to both expand the scope of work and serve as a model to other communities. “We asked for an increase,” Rouse said. “There’s still a little bit of a hole. In order to expand the way we would really like to expand, we need more money.”


Elizabeth Ouzts wrote this article for Energy News Network.


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By Anya Petrone Slepyan for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Eric Tegethoff for North Carolina News Service Service for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

In the 1930s, women employed by the Works Progress Administration rode pack horses through the mountains of eastern Kentucky, bringing books to rural residents in hard-to-reach places. Nearly a century later, Kirsten Crawford Turner is carrying on that tradition, with the help of a truck and a U-haul rather than a horse and saddle bags.

Turner grew up in Shelby, North Carolina in the Appalachian foothills, an area pummeled by Hurricane Helene in September 2024. Though she now lives in Greenville, South Carolina, she saw the extent of the damage the hurricane caused during frequent trips up the mountain to bring food and supplies to family members in the Asheville area.

"I saw all the devastation and I thought, 'what can I do?'" Turner said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. "I cannot operate heavy machinery. I cannot rebuild this whole area. What can I do that would be impactful and make a difference?"

As a military wife and mother of three, Turner has been through difficult seasons herself, and said that she always found solace in reading. She had also learned about the historic packhorse librarians from a number of books, including Kim Michele Richardson's The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. So she thought, why not take books to people like a modern-day packhorse librarian?

She began by asking friends and neighbors for gently used books that she could deliver on her trips up the mountain. The project grew quickly in the months following the hurricane.

"It started with one box of books on my porch," Turner said. "Now I have thousands of books [to give away] in my house."

Books for Burnsville

On November 2, 2024, Turner and her husband pulled into the parking lot of the West Burnsville Baptist Church in rural Yancey County, North Carolina. Along with a handful of volunteers, including Turner's parents, they started passing out thousands of books that had been donated from around the country.

More than 500 people attended the event, including Burnsville residents Jamie Black and her 10-year-old daughter Jenavieve, a voracious reader who had been anxiously awaiting the event for weeks. The family had been without power for a month, but Black had seen a post about the event on Facebook and thought it would help her daughter, who like other children in the area, had missed a significant amount of school.

"Books take you away on an adventure," Jenavieve said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. "It doesn't matter what's going on around you if you're reading a good book."

That's one of the ideas behind the 21st Century Packhorse Librarian project, according to Turner.

"I think [reading] gives people a respite from their own story, so they can really process and heal from their trauma more gently," Turner said.

More than 100 people in North Carolina were killed by Hurricane Helene, and the September storm caused a record-breaking $59.6 billion in damages, according to the state budget office. Over 5,000 homes will need to be rebuilt, with thousands of businesses damaged or closed as a result of the storm. North Carolina Governor Josh Stein is urging state legislators to increase recovery spending, even as President Trump, who visited North Carolina in late January, is enacting plans to dissolve the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Since October, Turner has organized events in nine communities in western North Carolina, and given away more than 9,000 books for free. The books are arranged by age group, and there is no limit to how many books people can take.

"I don't put a limit on it. Because say someone is taking four tote bags full of books - that person could have lost their whole house and all their books," Turner said.

Donations have poured in from across the country, Turner said, with people driving from as far as Texas and Ohio to deliver books. People can also donate books through Turner's Amazon wishlists, as well as by mail.

A number of children's authors associated with Christian publishing and media organizations such as Story Warren and Rabbit Room have donated books. Turner, who is Christian, has also made sure to keep high-quality, large-print bibles in stock.

Though she isn't able to read everything that comes through, she tries to curate her selections. She avoids books with sexually explicit content and references to the occult, and prioritizes books that she considers to be healing and uplifting, especially classic literature. Many of the books on her wishlists are the same as those distributed by the original packhorse librarians nearly a century earlier.

"There's a lot to say about the power of story in the classics," Turner said. "Bless those kids, they love Diary of a Wimpy Kid and I can't stand that book. I bring it for them, but I also try to get a good book in their hands as well."

Bearing Witness

According to its Facebook page, the primary mission of the 21st Century Packhorse Librarian project is to "distribute quality literature, free of charge, throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains, ensuring that individuals and families - especially in rural and remote areas - have access to great books."

But Turner has found that her role goes beyond handing out books to those who want them. She spends most of her time at each event talking to people, and hearing their stories. This is both rewarding and challenging, Turner said.

"I get to carry a little bit of their burdens for them, and hear how much bringing books means to them. But it's also a bit emotionally overwhelming at times, because we hear not only stories from the storm, but all sorts of things we wouldn't imagine we'd hear," she said.

Turner also uses her platform on Facebook to bring awareness to the destruction in communities she visits, posting pictures of places like Marshall, North Carolina, that were devastated by the storm. She says bearing witness to the communities' distress is part of her mission to keep attention on the ongoing recovery efforts.

"The rest of the world has moved on with their lives, and people aren't thinking about it anymore," Turner said. "I don't want anyone to feel forgotten."

Recovering from disasters like Helene takes years, but Turner is in it for the long haul.

"People keep asking me how long I plan to do this. And the answer is always 'as long as God wants me to," Turner said.

And though the project was born as a response to the hurricane, Turner feels the books she brings help address a deeper need in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

"The more I hear, the more I realize that these books aren't just disaster relief, they're life relief."


Anya Petrone Slepyan wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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By Ilana Newman for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Eric Galatas for Colorado News Connection for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

One rural Colorado town is working to turn an irrigation ditch into a walking trail to connect the community, get people outside, and grow their recreation economy. 

In 2022, Monte Vista, Colorado received a Recreation Economies for Rural Communities (RERC) grant, which helped the city strategize to revitalize main streets and grow their outdoor recreation economy. What’s now known as the Lariat Ditch Project came out of the RERC planning process. 

The city of Monte Vista, population 4,070, sits in the middle of the San Luis Valley, a high elevation valley known for agriculture and access to some of the tallest mountains in the state. The region is known for their potato production, as well as growing barley, hay and alfalfa, according to their city manager, Gigi Dennis. 

Dennis saw developing the local economy through tourism and recreation as a way to support agriculture and get people to “think about Monte Vista in a different light.” She wants people to think of the city as an active, enjoyable place to visit and not just an agricultural community.

Local nonprofit organization San Luis Valley Great Outdoors (SLV GO!) applied for and received the RERC grant on the city of Monte Vista’s behalf in 2022 and has since been involved with creating the plan to develop more of a recreation economy in the area. Mick Daniel, executive director of SLV GO!, said they saw a lot of potential for Monte Vista to benefit from more planning around outdoor recreation. 

“We were sitting in the middle of like 8 million acres of public land….it kind of felt like there just wasn’t a lot of coordination between our public land managers, our communities, our recreationists,” Daniel said. The planning grant created an opportunity for all of those disparate groups to come together and create a cohesive strategy for the future of the city. 

RERC is a program in partnership with the EPAs Office of Community Revitalization, the Forest Service, the USDA, the Northern Border Regional Commission, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and the Denali Commission. 

It provides planning assistance for rural communities to grow their recreation economies. This can look like Main Street revitalization to support bringing visitors into the community, building infrastructure like trails, or creating community consensus on how to attract visitors and manage natural resources.

The Lariat Ditch Project takes a two mile stretch of open irrigation ditch that Daniel said is often filled with trash, pipes it, and places a trail on top. 

In conversations with the ditch company, Monte Vista city planner Dwayne Enderle said “they were more than happy to look at placing the ditch into a concrete culvert and placing the walkway on top”. Especially because, according to Daniel, the company was experiencing a huge loss in water due to “seeping through the walls of the ditch”. 

The trail would connect main street businesses in Monte Vista to their homes and other recreation opportunities around the area, including passing a half mile from the recently renovated Sky Hi Complex, a conference and event center that hosts Colorado’s oldest professional rodeo.

“What if we can connect this community to these valuable recreation resources? Maybe we don’t think about them as outdoor recreation, but a rodeo pretty much is outdoor rec,” said Daniel. The ditch also passes near downtown, the high school, the golf course, tennis courts, and through several neighborhoods.

The idea to build a trail along or on top of the ditch has been floating around the community for over a decade, Daniel said. But funding has, and continues to be, a challenge. The city of Monte Vista applied for a grant through the University of Colorado in 2024 to fund the project, but as of early January 2025, Dennis said that they have not yet been awarded any funding. 

“It’s a $12 million project, which is phenomenal for Monte Vista because my general fund tax base is only about four and a half million dollars…It will be hard to fulfill if we don’t get the grant funding.” Dennis said.

Building trails to connect communities to the outdoors is something that SLV GO! is doing around the region. The Lariat Ditch trail would become a part of the “Heart of the Valley”, a system of trails that will connect the communities of the San Luis Valley to each other and to the public land that surrounds the area. 

“You could potentially get on a bike or an e-bike and ride to the BLM or the Forest Service or ride over to dinner in Del Norte or lunch in Del Norte and maybe ride back,” said Daniel. 

While these trail systems might also add appeal to tourists visiting the towns, for Daniel, developing the region’s recreation economy looks mostly like appealing to locals, not visitors. 

Other towns in the valley, like South Fork, close to Wolf Creek Ski Area and located on the Rio Grande river, and Alamosa, the larger town closer to Great Sand Dunes National Park, see more tourism than Monte Vista. But Daniel knows that small business owners in Monte Vista would also love to see more visitors.

“I think by making it more livable for the people who live there, tourism will be a very pleasant side effect, not a bad side effect. The great thing about tourists is that they go home. They spend money, they go home,” he said.


Ilana Newman wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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By Liz Carey for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Minnesota News Connection for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

When rural patients incur medical bills they can’t pay, the impact of the debt reaches far beyond their own personal pocketbooks, a new study has found.

Medical debt also impacts the hospitals that can’t collect on the debt and the communities they serve, according to a research brief from the Rural Health Research Center at the University of Minnesota. Although medical debt is something all communities have, it hits rural communities harder, Carrie Henning-Smith, co-director for the center, said.

Researchers interviewed rural hospital administrators in seven states – Arkansas, California, Illinois, Texas, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia – to look at the implications of medical debt on rural communities at large.

“We know how widespread medical debt is,” Henning-Smith said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “We weren’t particularly surprised by anything we heard, but I think one thing that stands out to me is that this is not just an issue of healthcare facilities passing on big bills to patients and then patients shouldering that burden.” 

“This is really an issue that impacts individual patients, whole communities, and healthcare facilities, and I think smaller rural facilities that have a more tenuous bottom line are some of the most impacted,” she said.

Research indicates that about 44% of all U.S. adults are affected by medical debt, and that $88 billion in outstanding medical bills is currently in collections across the country. Researchers found the debts impact a rural hospital’s ability to continue paying their employees. With fragile bottom lines, rural hospitals are less likely to absorb the debt, respondents said.

A respondent from a Midwestern state said to the researchers, “One of the statistics that I think is really relevant is that we are about a $150 million organization… and 65% of those dollars go back in the form of compensation and benefits to our employees. So when we have medical debt that becomes excessive and we’re struggling to collect on the work that we do, it impacts our ability to employ [providers] and to serve our patients.”

With less revenue coming in, most respondents said, they are less likely to invest in equipment upgrades and their facilities, as well as less likely to hire more staff. Additionally, respondents said it’s harder to collect on that debt. 

“It’s a non-recourse issue. We can’t go back and take back what we’ve done,” a Southern state administrator told researchers. “You can’t repossess anything medical like you can with a car or a home or anything like that when there’s financial troubles. We end up really just getting unpaid, mostly.”

Researchers found that much of the blame for the debt issue is not solely because of patients who are underinsured. In many cases, insurance companies and other payers – including Medicare, Medicaid and Medicare Advantage – are not covering the cost of care that the hospitals provide.

“They need to have their cost recouped for the care that they provide,” Henning-Smith said, “and when they have patients who are uninsured or underinsured or when they are dealing with insurance companies and payers that are not providing a sufficient amount to pay for the cost of the care, then the facility suffers and the patients and community suffer too.” 

“It’s clear that our payer system is broken and that we have people whose care is not compensated at all or not at the rate that it needs to be to keep these facilities financially thriving,” she said.

Even if a patient is insured, some hospital administrators surveyed pointed out that underinsurance can create problems for patients and hospitals as well. High deductibles and plans with limited coverage options shift the responsibility for payment from the insurance company to the patient.

An administrator from the Midwest told the researchers, “Even the people who have the ability to pay, when you have more things like a high deductible health plan, no matter what your income is, it’s not easy for very many people if you have a $5,000 deductible. When that bill comes, that’s a difficult thing.”

Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, said when rural hospitals don’t get paid, the impact is far reaching. Hospitals are typically among the largest employers in rural communities, and if a hospital fails because it can’t pay its bills, the whole community suffers.

“We’re in the midst of a hospital closure crisis and declining points of access to care in rural communities and it is because of bad debt, period,” Morgan said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “When a hospital has to find ways to write off bad debt… for a lot of these rural hospitals, they’re operating on the margin and carrying large amounts of debt and uncompensated care that sometimes drives them to closure.”

When hospitals close due to financial problems, the economic hit on the community is multi-faceted, he said. The lost jobs not only reduce tax revenue coming into the community, but also impact the amount of consumer dollars being spent in the community. It means less income for businesses indirectly linked to the hospital, like flower shops, he said. And once the hospital closes, getting new families and businesses to move there becomes more difficult.

Fixing the issue will mean reforming how rural hospitals are reimbursed, Henning-Smith said.

“The message needs to continue to be about payment reform and understanding that medical debt is a widespread issue that’s not going away, but it’s not an individual issue and it’s not a matter of personal and individual responsibility,” she said. “It’s a community and a collective and a societal issue that if we don’t address, it’s not going to only impact the health and access to care of individuals, but it’s also going to impact availability of care in rural communities and places that need that care the most.”


Liz Carey wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


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