North Carolina was hard hit by Helene, as were the businesses. Garden Party is a lifestyle boutique in Asheville that is helping small businesses thrive and recover.
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00:00Asheville North Carolina was hit hard by Hurricane Helene and so is the eclectic
00:04community of small businesses, makers and creators. Cory Reid is an e-commerce
00:08expert who had an idea to help. Yeah, also joining us is Terrell Terrellton
00:15Wombsley, Wombsley I'm sorry, the co-founder of Garden Party. It's a
00:21lifestyle lifestyle boutique in Asheville, North Carolina. Thanks both of
00:25you for joining us here this morning. Hi, it's great to be here. Thank you. Yeah,
00:30earlier I heard you also offer to do the weather, so we'll maybe take you up on
00:34that offer, but Cory, what was your idea to help small businesses and how's that
00:38effort going? Yeah, so I've worked in e-commerce for years now and live here in
00:44Asheville, North Carolina and so, you know, right after the storm my family and I we
00:49kind of had to get ourselves out. We were able to evacuate after a couple of days
00:52cutting ourselves off of the mountain that we live on and went to evacuate to
00:58Charlotte, North Carolina and stay with my mother-in-law and was talking to one
01:02of her neighbors who said, you know, I went to a local called French Bride
01:08Chocolates here in Asheville and I bought everything I could from them
01:10knowing that it would just help them, you know, keep cash flow going during this
01:15busy time and so, you know, I've come in, I've worked in e-commerce for years. I
01:18work for an agency that builds websites and builds digital experiences for brands
01:22and so, it kind of just like, oh, well, you know what, it would be great if we
01:25could maximize that impact and be able to have a place where everyone from
01:30around the country can go find brands in Western North Carolina and help them
01:35find, you know, holiday gifts or anything like that. So, it kind of really stemmed
01:39from that and just put a call out on Instagram saying, you know, we're
01:42launching this thing and please send me information and it just became this
01:47really beautiful experience to see all these business owners in Western North
01:51Carolina reach out and now we've had, you know, thousands of people come to the
01:54site and it's really just a directory where you can find different brands from
01:59around Western North Carolina where you can help support, you know, come back from
02:03the hurricane. And Tarleton, your business is both retail and online sales.
02:08How did Helene impact your life and your work? We were in a particularly
02:15interesting situation with Garden Party. We were in the middle of building out
02:18our new shop front and so when Helene hit, we paused on that build-out process
02:26and in the meantime, we're worried about sales coming in because the build-out
02:32was very expensive and we definitely were looking at our projections in
02:36October. It was supposed to be a really impactful month for our business. It is
02:41for a lot of businesses here because October is leaf season, you know, we're
02:46used to both locals and tourists coming out to support and with the impact of
02:51the storm, that just wasn't happening. And so when Corey reached out with his
02:55idea, I loved it because it, you know, it's sort of helpful to be under an
03:00umbrella of all kinds of different brands where the user can go to one
03:05website versus multiple different ones and then they can click and easily find
03:09brands that they want to support. And so we've already felt the impact of brands
03:14of WNC helping us with our sales. So it felt really hopeful in a time that was
03:20really traumatic and stressful to still have monetary support coming through in
03:25this way for us.
03:27And what can people do to help? How can they connect with brands of WNC?
03:34Yeah, so if I mean, the number one thing is just go support the brands that are on
03:38there, right? Like, you've got Hanukkah gifts, Christmas gifts, anything that you
03:42can go buy, go buy it from someone in Western North Carolina. A lot of people
03:46are shipping, getting their operations back. And that just helps support this
03:49community. Like Tarleton said, you know, the tourism really slowed down after
03:55Helene. And so it's just so important to drive your purchases to these brands to
04:01just help them continue to thrive. And then if you are a brand that's in Western
04:06North Carolina, just reach out and we'll get you on the site. It's something that
04:10we do just during off hours just to help support all of our friends here in Western
04:16North Carolina who are trying to have these really thriving, thoughtful
04:20businesses.
04:22Corey Reed and Tarleton Wimsley, thank you so much for joining us. And of course,
04:26we wish you a lot of luck as life slowly gets back to normal.