At The Children’s Playhouse in Boone on a weekday, kids and their caregivers alike busy around with name tags. At the indoor play space, you’ll spot a nanny reuniting with the toddler she used to babysit or a mom watching her daughter while balancing a laptop on her knee.
“Generally, moms in this area tend to reach out to help each other and make everybody feel welcome and do what we can to provide resources, even when things aren’t bad,” says Amy Forrester, who moved to Boone in 1997 for college and never left. A mom of two, Forrester worked as a fifth grade teacher for about 10 years and now owns fizzEd Boone, a family restaurant and bar downtown.
“When this disaster came through, I think the mom network definitely kicked right in.”
Overall, Forrester says, she and her family have been lucky. They’ve had to boil their water for the past three days, but at least her business and home are safe. Many others can’t say the same.
Forrester joined High Country Moms − a private Facebook group with nearly 4,000 members − over a decade ago, mainly as a place to give away her children’s old toys, clothes and books.
They came to Asheville for healing.Now, all they see is destruction.
Now, she’s in the group offering free meals to those in need, no questions asked. Several have taken her up on the offer.
“We are very tight-knit, and I think we accept each other for who we are and just do our best to help,” she says on a call from her restaurant, where, in between answering questions, she helps a friend pick up charcoal for a neighbor who needs it to cook without power. “When you live in a really small town, you kind of have to make and keep those connections, because those are the people that you’re going to see all the time.
Raising that next generation of generous moms and dads’
Hailee Hartley has lived in Boone for 33 years − her whole life. Though not a mom herself, she owns and directs Kid Cove, a local childcare facility with three locations in the area. She’s plenty plugged into the parent community.
She’s also a longtime member of the local Facebook group. “Pre-hurricane, you would see a lot of, ‘Hey, I have baby boy clothes for 0-3 months. Does anyone need them?’ Or, ‘Here’s what’s happening this Saturday in Watauga County to take your kids to,'” she says. Now, the posts have taken a graver turn.
“The past five days, I have seen moms posting ‘Can someone please get to this person on this road?’ or ‘Can someone please try to get ahold of this person?'” she says. “Immediately you have 40 or 50 moms commenting like, ‘Yes, we’ll send this person,’ or they’ll tag a person. It’s a whole network that moms are plugging into to try to get help.”
Hartley says she plans to open a temporary program at Kid Cove − similar to a summer camp − for school-age children while many elementary schools in the area remain shut down due to damage.
Amid the devastation, Hartley says she’s witnessed moving examples of families coming together. She recalls one little girl − about the age of 2 − who helped load a truck with supplies, carrying each white container one at a time with the biggest smile on her face.
“It’s just these moms encouraging their children to see the helpers but also be the helpers too,” she says. “They’re raising that next generation of generous moms and dads.”
‘We just reach out and help’
The selflessness of the moms of Boone might seem remarkable to outsiders. But to those inside the community, it’s no surprise.
“If we see other moms struggling, we don’t even think about it,” Patterson says. “We just reach out and help them. ‘What can we do? Can we bring diapers? Do you need formula?'”
Though shaken by Helene, the moms have also been brought together like never before. Hartley predicts their community is only going to grow tighter in the coming weeks − as the full scope of the damage comes into focus.
No matter what, she says, mountain moms will be there for each other.
“You’re going to see strength in people that you never knew existed. You’re going to see strength in villages you never thought existed,” she says. “That’s going to be amazing to see. It already is.”
