Help Kari and Jake Rebuild Their Vintage Business

UPDATE: We are so thankful for everyone who has supported us through this heartbreaking time. As we have had more of a chance to assess our lost income and inventory, we have decided to increase our goal to more accurately reflect our losses and help us rebuild our business from the ground up.

Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude for all of your generous donations, big or small, that have helped take an enormous financial weight off our chest. We are so humbled by this experience.

So much love,

Kari and Jake

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Our vintage business inventory was housed at our shop in Biltmore Village and was destroyed by the storm surge from the Swannanoa River.

We are unsure what we will do moving forward and are at a loss for words seeing what we have been building for the last five years taken away in an instant. This is our sole source of income, and like so many small businesses we live paycheck to paycheck.

We are reaching out to our community and asking if you can please donate with relief for us to help pay our bills and keep us afloat until we can hopefully rebuild our inventory to keep our business going.

We are not sure when we will be able to return to work, so much of the area is completely wiped off the map, and like many others we are currently in survival mode.

Many parts of the area, including where our home is located, will likely see mass evacuations as access to running water seems to be in the distant future for us. We are currently safe but have been displaced from our home due to this issue.

Our love for this area runs so deep. Asheville has been our home for over a decade, and Kari has lived her entire life in Appalachia. It is one of the most special places in the world, and is often misunderstood.

We source the majority of our inventory from this area, and have been blessed to connect with people from many different walks of life through this business. This human connection has been tremendously enriching and has shaped us as people.

We are devastated at the loss of towns like Swannanoa, Woodfin, Marshall, Hot Springs, and Black Mountain. At the loss of Biltmore Village and the River Arts district. And towns we have yet to find out the fate of. This area has a beautiful rich history, and is home to some of the most salt of the earth people you can imagine.

We are beyond heart broken for Western North Carolina. Our thoughts and prayers are with our neighbors who have lost their businesses, homes, and lives.

The people of Appalachia are amazingly resourceful, creative, and driven. We have faith that the community will come together and recover from this tragedy, but we will need assistance from people like you in the outside world.

Thank you for your time,

Kari and Jake