It's the Brew podcast. The drive, Brew Linda Heras, of course, here, an international food judge and beer judge. And we also have someone calling in from North Carolina. And, actually, she's on the line here, so let's bring her onto the show. She is Lisa Parker, executive director of the North Carolina Brewers Guild. Then I'll turn it over to Linda. Hi, Lisa. How are you? Hi. I'm doing well. Thank you so much for letting
me join you this evening. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you guys have power and phone to be able to call in. Erin Gore and I had talked about this before, and I just wanted to let you guys get a chance to start assessing the damage and hopefully drying, up a little bit there. And so you went into action really quickly there in Asheville. So and started the pouring for neighbors and some other fundraisers. But tell us, how are things
in Asheville right now? I know that there's so one of the, Sierra Nevada Brewing Companies is there. New Belgium, I saw pictures of underwater. Yeah. A couple other things too. So tell us what's what's going on there. Yeah. So, really, the majority of Western North Carolina is it's like a war zone and I'm not exaggerating. There is so much devastation all across the counties of Western North Carolina, including Asheville. We've got a 120 breweries in the counties designated by, for FEMA relief.
And it is, it's just heart wrenching to to see everyone, struggling, but but also heartwarming because this community is truly pulling together. And it's amazing what everybody from the breweries to the neighbors are are all doing together. So okay. So, I mean, how are people as far as well, obviously, you know, there's people's jobs at the breweries. I've seen the cute little downtown. I I never got to make it there. I'm so bummed.
My parents have, and, and it just always looked like just what an idyllic spot, and this was really unexpected. You people keep going, oh, it was a flood zone. I don't believe you're in a flood zone. Right? No. Most most of the area, was not considered a flood zone or or, you know, a 100 year flood zone or even a 1000 year flood zone. And so what we're finding is a lot of the residents of Western North Carolina didn't have flood insurance and so that's also very complicating.
But, right now, power is being restored, and we are so grateful for all the alignment working round the clock right now to get power restored. But but we we found that, most of the bridges got so many bridges got washed out. Roads got destroyed by the floodwaters and beyond just mud going over, like, the road itself was washed out. There were landslides covering so so much of, these these mountain communities. So okay. So now we are looking at how to help.
And so you you probably know here in Santa Rosa where the radio station is, Noma County, we had the toughest fire in 2017, and then boom, another fire, Kincaid and all these others. And of course, and people helped us and people did beers to help support us, around the world. And so I have seen this. So there's a pouring for neighbors. Tell us about that, and then I wanna hear about the one that's more, local for, the Helene donate and volunteer as well.
Yeah. So Pouring for Neighbors is the initiative that we launched right off the bat, to to try to just generate, lifesaving funding coming into the relief organizations that were working on the ground. And the great thing about this program is that anyone with a TAP can participate. It's a TAP designation program.
So any brewery or tap room or bar or restaurant that wants to help support the relief efforts can designate a tap in their brewery or in their business and pros and donate at least a dollar from the sales of that tap back to one of the relief organizations of their choice. Additionally, we've now posted, the various GoFundMe that our breweries have created. We've posted those on our website and are encouraging, you know, those as an option as well
for donating these funds. And then there's the Helene, and then then okay. How do people get a hold of help you with the Pouring for Neighbors, and then we'll go to the next one. Helene Sure. Sure. So Yeah. Sure. For neighbors, if you go to drink n c beer dot org, in the top part of the the website, you'll see a menu bar. And there are 3 options related to hurricane Helene relief. There's going to be relief and support. That is resources for our impacted communities of Western North Carolina.
And then there is donate and volunteer, and there's Pouring for Neighbors is the 3rd. So click on that Pouring for Neighbors. There'll be a button link to click on to sign up for the program. We have over 200 participants now in over 30 countries and territories, including the Virgin Islands. Wow. So what else are some of the immediate needs? How can we help
otherwise? I mean I mean so I've heard about these mules coming and bringing supplies because you're cut off between the roads and and the and the bridges. Right? Yeah. So a lot of the communities in in the hollers, in the the more, rural areas of Western North Carolina up in the high country are not accessible right now. And so pack mules are going out there. Folks are going out by horseback and ATV to try to reach these these very isolated communities that were also, just devastated.
And I wanna address the there's some, you know, misinformation myths out there also that saying that that FEMA is not helping and the Red Cross isn't helping and I mean, are you guys getting help? False news. False news. We we have been out there on the ground. So we have a coalition of breweries that have been collecting supplies. We've been helping to organize transport and and get those supplies
up into the communities where they're needed. And we've seen firsthand, the the, National Guard, FEMA, they are all on the ground doing a great job. That is a we we we hoped so, and I'm glad to hear it from somebody who's literally got boots, as in brewers boots on the ground. Tell us a little bit about the North Carolina Brewers Guild that you're the executive director of. Obviously, you're able to pivot quickly. Yeah. So we are the trade association for North Carolina's
independent craft breweries. We have 420, craft breweries across the state, mountains to coast, and and it's about a quarter of them that are located in Western North Carolina. Yeah. Well, we're gonna post these links on the Bruhaha Facebook page, and then you can also go on to our podcast if you wanna rehear any of this information and the usual suspects like iTunes, etcetera. And we'll we'll have those links up so you can click on there and donate and hopefully be able, you know, to help
in some way. And then there's also if you're able to go volunteer, I don't know when that is a hindrance or help. Yeah. Right now, for anyone who wants to volunteer on the ground, we are asking that they find an organization to work with and to make sure to wear appropriate TBE. We've got, there's a lot of biohazard, issues right now in in the cleanup, and so you need to make sure that you're doing this in an organized manner with an organization and wearing appropriate
protection. Lisa Parker, executive director of the North Carolina, Brewers Guild. Thank you for taking the time. Best of luck to you. Everybody stay cool and, move, forward positively. Thank you so much for having me on this evening. We absolutely appreciate the support. Okay. We appreciate you, and thank you very much.