003 - "How do I take care of my people?"

Good morning, Asheville. Today is Wednesday, October 23. This is episode three of the Asheville Daily podcast. Weather Today is looking like lows in the forties right now. Highs to the mid seventies, not looking like rain. I'm your host, Tony Hubertaccio. And in today's episode, slight deviation from yesterday. We're three episodes in. There's no standard form. I wanted to tell a story, provide some meaningful information, point out a local resource, and then get on with our day. So first up, business in town called Rockgeist. And so Rockgeist, if you're not familiar, is past podcast guest, episode 109. So if you make it, go to makingitanasheville.com, search for episode 109 or rock Geist in making it in Asheville, we did an episode together. And it's one of, I guess, several that stand out over the course of the years. In part because I fumbled, I blew it. I did the recording in person. I brought my whole setup. It was supposed to be awesome. There was sound and I messed up somehow and it was unusable audio. But the rock Geist is located in the mill at Riverside. If you're not familiar with that by name, it's up Riverside drive. You just break out of Asheville, you're in Woodfin for a second. High five. Riverside is right there. Woodfin Riverside park is right around the corner. Asheville French Broad River Academy du Bois campus is right there. Anyway, beautiful old kind of industrial complex. And they were in the lower level, sort of underground, maybe in the basement level would be the official term. A couple steps down into their space and it was a beautiful, you know, cavernous space, I think I was on their website just a moment ago. I want to say it was a 3000 square foot studio. Yeah, 3000 square foot. Anyway, being in the basement of a riverside industrial park, not a great place to be during Helene. And so they received 5ft of flooding. I remember watching on instagram as they kind of documented their efforts to pull out as much of their materials and sewing machines. So rockeyes, they make custom and kind of pre made bike packing gear. Bikepacking. Think like you go backpacking and you go distance carrying a backpack. Bikepacking, same thing, distance with a pack on your bike. It's really cool. Like they build custom bags that sit between your frames on your handlebars in the back. Really interesting sport culture that I wasn't familiar with really, until sitting down with Greg and learning about their business. Anyhow, watching them kind of race against the clock, pulling out as much as they could, knowing that Helene was coming and was bigger than maybe initially assessed, was like, this harrowing story. And so then, you know, post Helene, I'm early stages. I'm doing these supply runs. I came up with as much stuff as I could pack from Atlanta and South Carolina. And I'm trying to get close to our house. We live right next to, you know, the riverside park there next to the mill. And so trying to get to the french broad River Academy, where I heard they're taking supplies and sending people out into the mountains to reach these hard to access communities. And I ended up having to go around Elk Mountain, and the road behind the mill was blocked with downed power lines and trees and wires. And it looked like people had gone through, but I was like, that's too sketchy. So I turned back around, and I went even closer to the river, down through the mill. And as I drove past Rakheist, I saw Greg, Dusty, like the little boy from sandlot when the house collapses and dust flies everywhere and he shakes himself off. I think we've been going about this all wrong. You know, Greg is coming out of the shop, Dusty, with a big respirator mask on. And I stopped and, you know, just a look on his face, seeing me, he was happy. It was sad. It was all of these feelings. I was feeling happy and sad and all these feelings. And so we start talking, and I asked, like, Greg, what do you need? What do you want? What does help look like at this stage? I have a car loaded with stuff. If I have the stuff, I'll give it to you. If not, give me time, and I'll figure it out. I'll get it for you. And what's incredible is that my mind went to stuff. What stuff do you need? And his answer was, not stuff. It was. I just, how do I take care of my people? Like, what am I even supposed to be doing right now? Is it, like, do I keep paying them? Is that the best thing? Do I do like, I remember, like, a furlough. I don't even know what that means necessarily. I'm making some of the word choices up, but, like, well, how do I take care of my people? Was his answer. Dusty working in the basement is help clearing the bases, help getting the mud out is help moving stuff back in its help buying sewing machines. It's help money. What is it? It was no, how do I take care of my people? And I'll, you know, I'll never forget that as an answer. I think we both kind of got choked up. I don't know how to take care of you people. I don't know what the best option is, but I said I would get smart on it and I would do my best to close the loop. And so the next section of this episode is going to be very high level, my understanding of how to attempt to take care of your people. What I'll say is that before I go rockgeist.com, g e I s t, rock. Like stonesrockgeist.com, right on their homepage. They have done a beautiful job showing how intense they were intensely they were affected and how miraculous it is in a lot of ways that they are still operating. They have a fundraiser, a GoFundMe. That is an option if you'd like to support. They're also requesting, if you're into it, that buying a gift card would be for store credit. Would be a great option for buying anything that's in stock. They're running through all of their inventory and expect hopefully to be back operational by spring of 2025. Rockgeist.com or visit makingitville.com daily. And I have all the notes from each of these episodes kind of stacked on top of each other with links to everything that I reference. And so with that today's episode, Department of Employment Security. Okay, so disaster unemployment assistance provides temporary payments for people who get. Who lost employment due to a federally declared disaster. So if you do choose to, you know, let stop paying employees say that, hey, we got to shut things down. There are options for your employees. So to qualify, you must meet one of these conditions. You lost your primary source of income, you can't reach your workplace. Right? So, like, trees were down. You can't reach your workplace. You're unable to work due to injury from a storm. Maybe that's unlikely. You were prevented from starting a new job due to a storm. So that would be a real brutal scenario. Or you become the main income provider because of storm related death. Okay, so you have 60 days from the date of that the North Carolina Division of Employment Security announces your county is covered by the federal disaster declaration to file a DUA. What I'll flag is that based on my math, and I don't know when they announced it, that's 39 more days from today, so there's still a little bit of time to begin that process. Okay. Impacted counties deadlines can be found on the DES website, which is des dot nc.com. so that is Department of Employment Security. Des. I didn't know that was an acronym until researching for this episode. Eligibility is reviewed weekly by the DES so you must continue to be out of work as a direct result of the disaster, both employees and self employed individuals. So business owners, self employed individuals can, you know, including farmers and commercial fishers, are eligible or may be eligible for disaster relief funding. Self employed individuals need to submit proof of employment and income within 21 days of filing the claim. Visit Des dot NC dot gov for more details to file a DUA if they've been if your employees have been affected. I also have a link on the show notes which is making it nashville.com daily that jumps directly into the faqs page on Des dot NC dot gov dot. One thing that I'll flag is that in doing research on in a different channel through this one thing I saw Washington that what might be the case is that unforced employees or self employed need to file for unemployment fully use unemployment resources and, you know, finish that process or exhaust the money that's available to them through unemployment and then disaster relief money gets called in and becomes available. I'm not entirely sure if that's the case in this instance as well. It was not communicated as such on the DES website, so I didn't mention it directly and I didn't add it to this, but I've seen that elsewhere. Maybe that's the case. Visit Des dot NC dot gov or the direct link making it in asheville.com daily and you can go right to the faqs on the page. Another resource I want to just make or announce make available make you aware of is that there's a business recovery center at the Chamber of Commerce. So this isn't necessarily solving Greg's problem because a meaningful portion of his business is cutting and sewing fabrics to make physical things. That said, if you need a workspace, you need Wi Fi, you need bathrooms, you need support. The business recovery center the chamber of Commerce does seem like a pretty good fit. That's 36 Montfort Ave. Right off the Montfort exit, and it is a first come, first serve temporary workspace available at no cost for business owners, nonprofit organizations and employees who are displaced due to helene. Internet access is available. You have to bring your own laptop, but it's open through the end of the year. Monday to Friday 09:00 a.m. to 05:00 p.m. there's space for up to 70 users. You have to do some sort of intake form. You have to agree to their code of conduct, but it seems like a pretty good fit depending on if your office has been affected the way that Greg's has or even close to the way that Greg's has. If you have, you know, Servpro in there trying to clean stuff up, you have contractors in there trying to like rebuild walls or, you know, redo flooring, it does seem like headed to the business recovery center at the chamber is a good fit. They have a ton of additional resources. We can talk about some of those in future episodes available to folks who do come in to see them, they said. Though if you are in need of reserved seating like a conference room or printing, you might want to check with chamber members who provide co working spaces. So that might be the center of craft Collider. Earnest Focal Point co working, thrive co working Hatchworks co working. But if you need Wi Fi, you know, climate controlled space and bathrooms, the business recovery center at Chamber of Commerce, 36 Montfort Ave. Does seem like it would be a pretty good fit. The last thing that we'll say before we wrap up today is that Friday there's going to be a business listening session. I believe venture Asheville Chamber of Commerce is combining to do this with hatchworks or hatch. So more details on that tomorrow. But business needs listening session is coming up this Friday. As always, making it in asheville.com or making it inashville.com daily for notes, show notes links on the previous daily episodes, you can email me at hello at makingit in Asheville if you want to share stories, give shout outs, support other local businesses, put things on my radar that are worth talking about. And I'm on instagram@instagram.com. making it in Asheville, so hope you're well. Be good to people and I'll see you tomorrow.