📣 Why This Week Matters

Reopening trails, open grant windows, and open minds. Western NC is moving from disruption to design-in-place. The throughline this week is attention that rebuilds: attention to place, to people, and to how we make meaning together. When we notice clearly, we design wisely.

🧭 This Week’s Bright Spots

• Asheville’s Event Support Grant window reopens to fuel free, public culture.
  ​
• Waynesville’s Salmagundi Gallery launches a monthly series on transformation in collage and clay.
  ​
• Blue Ridge Parkway reopens a critical stretch near Devil’s Courthouse, restoring 85+ miles of continuous access in WNC.
  ​
• NC’s draft Comprehensive Climate Action Plan moves into public overview on Sept 11.
  ​
• NC By Train ridership keeps climbing, signaling momentum for people-centered infrastructure.
  ​
• A Long Now conversation asks what intelligence is and how our choices shape it.

🏡 Local – Western NC

Event Support Grants reopen Sept 8

The City of Asheville’s Event Support Grant cycle opens Sept 8 for nonprofit-led, free public events in outdoor city spaces. Grants typically support programming that boosts cultural vibrancy and safe downtown activity.
​
​Why it matters: Smart micro-investments keep street-level culture visible, draw foot traffic for venue partners, and steady the heartbeat of downtown.
​
🔗 Read more​

​
Artists explore transformation at Waynesville’s Salmagundi Gallery

Salmagundi launches a new monthly series with Construct/Deconstruct through Sept 30, featuring six artists working in collage, clay, and mixed media. Opening reception Sept 5 during Art After Dark.
​
​Why it matters: Place-based galleries that foreground process and repair help communities metabolize change, not just observe it.
​
🔗 Full story​

​
Blue Ridge Parkway stretch reopens near Devil’s Courthouse

NPS completed Helene recovery work at milepost 422, restoring uninterrupted access from Asheville (MP 382) to Cherokee (MP 469). Phase 1 recovery continues into fall.
​
​Why it matters: Access to shared landscape is more than recreation. It is regional identity, creative fuel, and small-business revenue.
​
🔗 Full story​

​
WCU support for Helene-impacted students

Western Carolina University continues application-fee waivers for prospective students impacted by Helene and has communicated additional supports.
​
​Why it matters: Reducing friction at the start line keeps local talent in motion while broader aid mechanisms continue to flow.
​
🔗 Read more​

🌱 Statewide – North Carolina

Draft Comprehensive Climate Action Plan enters public overview

NC DEQ’s State Energy Office will host a public information session on Sept 11 as part of the comment period for the draft plan due later this year.
​
​Why it matters: This is where resilience priorities, clean energy investments, and local readiness get shaped. Show up early to influence the map.
​
🔗 Read plan​
​

People-first rail keeps gaining riders

NC By Train carried 355,000+ passengers in the first half of 2025, up 4 percent year over year. Consistent growth points to demand for reliable, lower-carbon mobility between NC cities.
​
​Why it matters: Ridership data strengthens the business case for expanding service and station-area development that benefits main streets.
​
​🔗 Full story​

🌎 National & Global

Systems imagination, live: “What Is Intelligence?” at The Long Now Foundation

Sept 16 in San Francisco (plus livestream), join a conversation on biological, artificial, and collective intelligence, and how design choices channel each.
​
​Why it matters: Leaders need clearer mental models for where human judgment ends and tool-assisted sensemaking begins.
​
​🔗 Read story​
​

Bonus trend to track: Chicago Architecture Biennial 6 opens Sept 19 with a civic, everyday-life lens. Useful pulse for spatial storytelling and place-led policy narratives.

✏️ From Our Corner

This Week: Story-Driven Marketing for Makers, Doers, and Dreamers — free webinar with Haywood Community College Small Business Center on Sept 9. Get language that leads to aligned offers and outreach. Register via the Small Business Center Network. For our teaching and training approach, see our Education page.

​

​Power Up Anywhere: The SKROSS World Travel Adapter PRO​

Published on September 3, 2025

​

​Local Roots, Big Impact: Turning Where You’re From Into What Sets You Apart​

Published on September 2, 2025

🛜 Online – Events/Webinars

• Sept. 9: Story-Driven Marketing for Makers, Doers, Dreamers** (HCC Small Business Center, free). Register.
  ​
• Sept. 11: NC State Energy Office — Draft Climate Action Plan overview (virtual). Register.
  ​
• Sept. 16: What Is Intelligence? The Long Now Foundation (in person + livestream). Details.

🌌 Cosmic & Possible

On looking as daily practice.
Maria Popova reflects on Lia Purpura’s On Looking and the art of noticing as a way of world-making. In a culture of distraction, disciplined attention becomes both creative method and civic muscle.
​
​🔗 Read it: The Marginalian.

🔍 Featured Intersection

• Attention as strategy: From climate planning to gallery curation, what we focus on determines what gets built. Treat attention as a deployable resource.
  ​
• Design-in-place: Grants, galleries, and greenways work when they reinforce local identity and everyday use, not spectacle.
  ​
• Evidence that compounds: Track small wins like ridership growth and segment reopenings. These are leading indicators for investment and narrative momentum.

💭 Closing Spark

“As a man is, so he sees.” — William Blake

⚙ Grow on Purpose with Us

🔍 Clarity sessions for strategic brand alignment → Book here.​
🎨 Logo, Branding, Experience Design? → That’s our jam.​
🧢 Intentional merch that matters → Explore Peak Promo.

Thanks for building what matters in community together.

By the way I’m John.​
Designing brands that actually mean something. Founder at Hornsby Creative Group. We lead with strategy, build with clarity, and partner with mission-driven teams ready to grow on purpose.