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Heart on Main Street Announces Independent Rebuild Initiative to Support Retailers Devastated by Natural Disasters
Heart on Main Street Announces Independent Rebuild Initiative to Support Retailers Devastated by Natural Disasters

Associated Press

time21 hours ago

  • Business
  • Associated Press

Heart on Main Street Announces Independent Rebuild Initiative to Support Retailers Devastated by Natural Disasters

07/22/2025, Atlanta, Georgia // PRODIGY: Feature Story // Heart on Main Street, a nonprofit organization, is proud to announce the Independent Rebuild Initiative, with the first store rebuild in Asheville, North Carolina, with direct, on-site assistance that was previously struggling to get its bearings after catastrophic natural disasters. This cohesive, hands-on effort is part of the organization's longstanding initiative and mission to support independent retailers devastated by natural disasters and other unfortunate events across the United States. Founded by Patrick Keiser, Heart on Main Street focuses on revitalizing America's main streets by offering crucial financial grants, donated products, and educational resources to independent businesses, often located in small towns and rural communities hardest hit by natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and fires. The new initiative brings volunteers together to physically restore damaged retail locations, including patching walls, painting, landscaping, and more, helping these vital businesses reopen quickly and sustainably. 'Our independent retailers are the heart and soul of American communities,' Keiser states. 'We've all seen the heartbreaking destruction left behind by natural disasters. Businesses that have taken decades to build can be wiped out overnight, impacting legacies. Our goal is to be the light at the end of the tunnel, helping them bring their stores back up. Even a small grant or some volunteer time often makes a tremendous difference in restoring these business owners with hope and a better future.' Independent retailers play a vital role in the American economy and community life. According to national statistics, local retailers return 52% of their revenue into the local economy, while national chain retailers contribute only 14%. This stark difference highlights how local businesses sustain vibrant economic ecosystems that benefit the entire community. In doing so, local retailers have been supporting jobs, local artisans, shopping companies, tax preparers, and countless other services. But beyond economies, these businesses also often sponsor community events, youth sports teams, and local festivals, serving as a connective pillar for neighbourhoods and towns nationwide. Despite its pivotal role in the country, independent retailers often lack the support to restore their business, with nearly 43% of them never reopening after natural disasters. Heart on Main Street's dual-approach rebuilding initiative addresses both immediate disaster relief and long-term sustainability. Apart from providing emergency grants and donations to help retailers restock shelves without incurring additional expenses, the organization offers monthly educational webinars focused on business fundamentals such as financial management, inventory control, and effective merchandising. This training is aimed at supporting first-time entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds who may have previously worked outside retail but now find themselves running businesses on their own. Since its launch in 2023, Heart on Main Street has connected with a plethora of local retailers with a particular focus on disaster-affected regions in the Southeast and Tornado Alley. The organization operates with a small but dedicated team, supported by an 11-member board. It collaborates with companies, donors, and volunteers who share the same community-driven values and passion toward elevating independent retailers for effective fundraising. Looking ahead, Heart on Main Street envisions expanding the Independent Rebuild Initiative. This is to scale up efforts that could eventually revitalize local retailers, enabling them to become hubs of thriving economic activity and community engagement once again, across the United States. To continue with its objective of expanding the initiative and rebuilding the backbone of the American economy, Heart on Main Street is seeking donors, partners, and benefactors who can contribute to its mission. 'It's deeply rewarding to be able to help these businesses and to actually make a difference in their lives,' Keiser states. 'When a store closes, it affects employees, families, and a much wider community. Our work is focused on preventing that ripple effect and preserving livelihoods, maintaining jobs, and protecting the fabric of these towns across America.' Media Contact Name: Mellissa Hopkins Email: [email protected]

Can Indigo De Souza Spin Pop Gold From the Wreckage of Her Past?
Can Indigo De Souza Spin Pop Gold From the Wreckage of Her Past?

New York Times

time2 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • New York Times

Can Indigo De Souza Spin Pop Gold From the Wreckage of Her Past?

Indigo De Souza and Elliott Kozel almost canceled their musical blind date. In January 2023, De Souza — a singer and songwriter who had increasingly toyed with borders around indie-rock, soul and pop — flew to Los Angeles from her home in Asheville, N.C., where she'd made her records with old friends. Now she wanted to try meeting strangers in their studios and seeing if, together, they might create a pop anthem. She was anxious, since this 'blind session' would be her first. Kozel wasn't nervous. He'd long done 60 such sessions a year. He had, however, been up late, playing songs in a small club. He was hung over. 'He was very grumpy, like the world had beaten him down,' De Souza said during a recent video interview, a day after turning 28, laughing beneath the radiant-green tree canopy of a rural spread where she sometimes stays near Asheville. 'He wasn't putting on any frills. He was showing me exactly who he was. That's what I needed.' Within an hour, Kozel had found a synthesizer sound and vocal sample De Souza loved. As the music looped, she sat down and, in 10 minutes, wrote 'Not Afraid,' an existential examination of life, aging and death, of recognizing the inevitability of them all. Kozel was stunned she could explore her own mortality so readily in front of someone new, let alone sing about it. Though De Souza went to other sessions, she returned only to Kozel to write and record in his garage. With its heroic keyboards, romantic guitars and insistent rhythms, the absorbing 11-track result, 'Precipice,' makes good on her longtime ambition to release a sophisticated pop album. It is a vivid and gripping reintroduction, putting her in unexpected conversation with stars like Lorde and Charli XCX. Perhaps more important, De Souza's work and camaraderie with Kozel allowed her to write about lifelong struggles with mental illness and abusive relationships with newfound clarity and confidence. 'She has a very thin wall between herself and her music,' Kozel said in an interview, noting she's the only songwriter he's worked with who made him cry. 'Whatever is going on, she's really good at just letting it out.' De Souza spent her first seven years in Bethel, Conn., where her mother, Kim Oberhammer, was raised. But by the time De Souza was coming of age there, the town had become an escape for wealthy New Yorkers. Oberhammer had divorced De Souza's father, a Brazilian guitarist, when De Souza was 3; she found a log cabin on a little farm in Western North Carolina and headed south with her kids. The small-town tension was immediate. In Spruce Pine, N.C., Oberhammer, a longtime artist, painted her 1986 Ford Ranger with pink camouflage and bombs emblazoned with the names of countries the United States had attacked. She glued naked Barbies to the hood. Its windows were repeatedly smashed. 'I was really embarrassed of her, because she was making us stick out like a sore thumb to people who didn't understand us,' De Souza said. 'Whenever I'd go to other people's houses, I'd be like, 'Why is my mom so different?' I felt some heartbreak.' Though not a musician, Oberhammer always kept instruments around and soon spotted the way they lured her youngest daughter. When De Souza got her first guitar, at 9, she began writing songs. Oberhammer bought her a four-track recorder and carted her to lessons with Rhonda Gouge, an area legend who insisted the elementary schooler develop calluses by playing steel strings. 'It was like a journal, this space for me to be really vulnerable and emotional,' De Souza said of those first songs. Her circumstances, though, got worse. De Souza shuttled among public and private schools and home-schooling, beaten down by bullying that sometimes stemmed from perceptions of her mother. And then her grandfather, who had dementia, moved in. When he became violent, Oberhammer sent De Souza, then 16, an hour southwest to live with her older sister, Logan, in Asheville. For the first time, she was popular in school, making friends who didn't find her weird and exposed her to indie-rock. She fell for an older busker and moved in with him. For years, she felt locked in a codependent and controlling relationship. 'That was the biggest turning point in my life,' she said, sighing. 'It's where a lot of my trauma comes from, where a lot of things my body and brain learned come from. I was so young.' De Souza doesn't regret those experiences, she said, because they at least fueled her songwriting, resulting in three albums where she lit fathoms-deep darkness and tales of awkward sex with wry humor and athletic theatricality. (M.J. Lenderman was a bandmate.) Her mother painted every album cover, and the brittle sounds of her early work became increasingly polished, with hints of arena-sized pop arriving on 'All of This Will End' in 2023. As she sang on that record, however, 'I'm not sure what is wrong with me, but it's probably just hard to be a person feeling anything.' Mixed with touring's unglamorous instability, those vestigial hardships corroded her mental health. De Souza clashed with bandmates until they quit and would sometimes disappear from gigs altogether, overwhelmed by anxiety and despair. Friends staged an intervention, leading to a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. 'I thought of myself as a bad person,' she said. 'Being able to put a name to it and realize I'm not broken, just traumatized by things that have happened, gave me a better picture of why I am the way I am.' Last fall, De Souza was on tour in New York when Hurricane Helene ripped through Western North Carolina. The mud line reached 12 feet inside the former church in which she'd been living in a mountain hamlet. Her roommates had tossed her favorite guitar, laptop, and a box of childhood mementos onto her bed, which floated. Almost everything else was gone. She was floored by her community's solidarity, how everyone put on gloves and grabbed shovels. But as she passed winter outside of town in a blue shed with paper thin walls, she got cold and miserable. 'It became this dull sadness,' she said. 'It felt like, 'Everything is destroyed, and we're going to be cleaning up for a long time.'' So De Souza went back to Los Angeles and Kozel. They began writing again, and she used his space to process the damage she'd seen in a place she loved. In a matter of weeks, they had made most of a second record together, expanding on their chemistry and the full-hearted pop of 'Precipice.' Starting her first album since her diagnosis felt different, too, like connecting with a new puzzle piece. What's more, De Souza began to recognize that the city's busyness — the producers she could meet, the shows she could see, the experiences she could have — made her happier than she'd been in years. She moved to L.A. early this year. In July, during her first visit home in six months, De Souza admitted she missed the creeks and mountains, some friends and familiar haunts. She was eager to take her California boyfriend to an Appalachian rodeo. But she seemed more excited that, since her diagnosis and move, she'd finally started to understand how to have a fulfilling relationship. Maybe she was even learning what she wanted. 'I've spent so long attaching to other people's idea of happiness that I'm now trying to figure that out for myself,' she said, smiling amid the trees. 'I want to figure out where I want to be for a long time, then sink into that place.'

American soap opera icon Eileen Fulton dies at 91
American soap opera icon Eileen Fulton dies at 91

Khaleej Times

time2 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • Khaleej Times

American soap opera icon Eileen Fulton dies at 91

Eileen Fulton, known for her iconic role as Lisa Miller on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns, has died at the age of 91. Fulton passed away on July 21 in Asheville, North Carolina, after a period of declining health, according to Variety. Her death was confirmed by a funeral home through an obituary. Fulton joined As the World Turns in 1960 and remained on the show until it ended in 2010. She played Lisa Miller, one of soap opera's earliest and most famous "bad girl" characters. Over five decades, Lisa's storyline included eight marriages, countless plot twists, and a long-standing place in viewers' hearts. Fulton herself helped shape the role, asking writers to add more edge and drama to her character, which helped keep the show popular. In 1998, Fulton was inducted into the Soap Opera Hall of Fame. She also received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004 for her work in television. Outside the soap opera, Fulton had a successful stage career. While acting live on As the World Turns, she also appeared in Broadway's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and off-Broadway in The Fantasticks. She performed acts across New York and Los Angeles for years. Fulton also wrote two autobiographies: How My World Turns in 1970 and As My World Still Turns in 1995, marking her 35th year on the soap. In the late 1980s, she wrote six murder mystery novels. She retired from acting in 2019 and moved to Black Mountain, North Carolina. Fulton is survived by her brother Charles Furman McLarty, niece Katherine Morris, and sister-in-law Chris Page McLarty.

Eileen Fulton, 'As the World Turns' soap star, dies at 91
Eileen Fulton, 'As the World Turns' soap star, dies at 91

Yahoo

time3 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • Yahoo

Eileen Fulton, 'As the World Turns' soap star, dies at 91

Actor Eileen Fulton, known for her long-running role as Lisa Grimaldi on the CBS soap opera "As the World Turns," has died at 91. Fulton died July 14 in Asheville, N.C., after a period of declining health, according to an obituary posted by Groce Funeral Home in North Carolina. She would become one of the longest-serving soap opera actors, playing Lisa with only a few interruptions from 1960 until the show's end in 2010. Fulton played the character as a villain, telling The Times in 1990 that Lisa was initially "a conniving, screaming witch" who "lied and wanted everything her way," a characterization that led fans to scorn her. Throughout the course of the show, Lisa was married eight times. But over time, Lisa evolved and "matured and learned from her mistakes." Fulton said she began to receive "love letters" from fans who admired the character's spunk. Fulton was inducted into the Soap Opera Hall of Fame in 1998 and received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. Fulton was born Margaret Elizabeth McLarty on Sept. 13, 1933 in Asheville. The daughter of a Methodist minister and a public school teacher, she graduated from Greensboro College in 1956 with a bachelor's degree in music and performed in an outdoor drama in North Carolina before moving to New York to pursue a career in acting, according to her obituary. She later adopted the stage name Eileen Fulton, and in 1960, she was cast in the drama "Girl of the Night." In addition to her soap opera career, Fulton had a cabaret act for years in New York and Los Angeles. She retired in 2019 and moved to Black Mountain, N.C. She is survived by her brother, Charles Furman McLarty, a niece and other family members. Sign up for Screen Gab, a free newsletter about the TV and movies everyone's talking about from the L.A. Times. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword

A new era of floods has arrived
A new era of floods has arrived

Washington Post

time3 days ago

  • Climate
  • Washington Post

A new era of floods has arrived

Natalie Newman believed she had done everything she could to get ready for Helene. Before the hurricane carved a path of destruction across the Southeast in late September, she assumed it would be like other storms she'd experienced in five years of living in Asheville, North Carolina. So Newman took her usual precautions: packing a go-bag, stocking up on food, moving her car uphill from her apartment on the banks of the Swannanoa River.

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