b'Nicole LaVoie has served as the grant writer for Western Carolina Rescue Ministries for the past two and a half years and currently is a resident of Asheville, North Carolina. She obtained a bachelors degree in English in May 2022, and writes both professionally and creatively, with publications in various written genres. packaging clothing boxes to distribute to individ-uals all over Western North Carolina, a need which became evident with the onset of the colder months, the overwhelming influx of clothing donations, and the lack of distribution centers for clothing.In early November, WCRM also partnered with the Red Cross and took over hosting one of their disaster relief shelters for hurricane victims through the end of 2024. As the Red Cross focuses their efforts away from shelter services and into resource placement, WCRM is working with them and other local and national collabo-rators around the clock to provide long-term shelter and placement options for all who have been affected by the storm. Creating normal A s time softly announces itself across our mountains, my heart is full of grief and hope. There still arent quite words for driving past beloved locations that look like foreign battlefields. But there also arent words for meeting people who drove across the country to turn their holiday vacation into a week of serving strangers.While WCRM continues to serve the commu-nity, there are constant discussions of what our new normal will look like, along with the expec-tation of it to change as the months go by. It is safe to say that normal has shifted its shape numerous Photos courtesy of Western Carolina Rescue Ministries times along this unexpected journey, and there is no expectation that this will stop anytime soon. However, when the day does come that normalcy settles in longer than a few weeks, we know it will be a place of discovery rather than returning. While none of us truly know what it will look like, we know what we are capable of, how we can help, and that no matter how the night roars and the wind rages, we can rejoice that every storm will one day be silenced. \x0324 WWW.CITYGATENETWORK.ORG JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025'