Hurricane Helene’s impact on Western North Carolina was devastating—including the impacts on Conserving Carolina’s trails and conservation properties. We need your help to fix the damage, provide places for healing, and make our communities safer and more resilient. Your support ensures that Conserving Carolina can respond quickly and effectively, not only to this crisis but to the ongoing work of protecting and restoring our region’s natural areas. Your gift helps:
Restore Beloved Trails
All Conserving Carolina trails are currently closed due to impacts that include downed trees, holes torn out by root balls, and landslides. Our dedicated team is assessing the damage and making plans to fix it, with roles for both volunteers and professional contractors. We’ll provide updates as soon as the trails are open to the public. If you are interested in volunteering, you can learn more about our volunteer opportunities here.
Provide Places of Refuge
We all need nature as we recover from this crisis—places for healing, solace, and rejuvenation. You are not only helping us reopen our trails. You are also creating new parks, trails, and greenways, and expanding our cherished public lands. These are the outdoor spaces that we need for our bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits.
Make Our Region More Resilient
During Helene, our restoration projects along the French Broad River helped to reduce local flooding and water pollution. They were also a place of refuge for fish and other wildlife, allowing them to survive the flood. As climate change makes extreme weather more likely, your gift will help us to bring back wetlands, sloughs, and natural floodplains, so our region is safer and more resilient.
Advance Climate Solutions
Conservation addresses a root cause of disasters like Helene—climate change. Your gift helps us protect forests and other natural areas, which store large amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere. The Nature Conservancy estimates that natural climate solutions like these could achieve up to 37% of the emissions reductions needed to combat climate change.
Support Conservation Landowners
Conserving Carolina is providing one-on-one support to conservation landowners—the people who own and steward private land protected by conservation easements. Our staff is helping them restore farmland and natural areas impacted by the hurricane.
Strengthen Our Communities
Conserving Carolina’s staff are actively involved in our communities, volunteering their time and expertise in Hurricane Helene relief and recovery. Conserving Carolina is looking beyond impacts on our own conservation projects and supporting this work in the broader community.
Will you help us recover from the storm, support our community, and create a safer, more resilient future?
Stay Informed: We’ll continue to share updates on our website and social media channels.
Together, we can build a stronger, healthier Western North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
You can find more information in these articles: