WNC EarthMates

️‍️‍🔥 Congratulations to the 2024 third-round winners of the Tzedek Impact Awards! Meet Cleaster, one of this year’s Impact Awards recipients. 🏆✨

💖 WHAT SHE DOES & WHY IT MATTERS:
Cleaster Cotton [Klee-Esta, like fiesta] is an internationally renowned Indigenous, Black American artist, educator, ALNUGĒ Codes inventor, TED Talk speaker, cultural conservationist, and human rights advocate whose life-long equity work has sought to address the impacts of racism from local to global levels. Fusing art and justice, Cleaster pioneered relationship-driven education, service, and development in Asheville, NC, including founding the Youth Artists Empowered program and co-founding WNC EarthMates. Her long list of collaborations extended to initiatives in food justice, environmental sustainability, and public art, notably with the Asheville City Government, Asheville Parks & Recreation, Arts AVL, Bountiful Cities, and Southside Community Garden. In recognition of her enduring impact, Cleaster received the 2024 Community Service Award from The Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Asheville and Buncombe County, a testament to her commitment to cultivating healing, inclusivity, and opportunity for impacted communities.

🔗 Click here to learn more: https://tzedeksocialjusticefund.org/2024-impact-award-winners-round-3/

Thank you, Cleaster! Join us in celebrating Cleaster’s impactful contributions to systems change and community healing in Asheville. Let’s share the love, spread the word, and keep representing our way to a thriving community for all! 👏🏾🎉

IT’S OUR GIRLS BIRTHDAY!! 🎶💃🏾🎂
Chef Sister Hanan Shabazz has nourished the bellies, hearts and minds of our community for decades- let’s show her some $Birthday Love$ !!
As a cultural icon and community leader, Sister Hanan has made it her life’s work to care for generations of families, preserving southern food traditions and oral histories, cooking up delicious meals and distributing food freely, sharing her knowledge in the kitchen and beyond.
Let’s show her some $LOVE$ and CELEBRATE her! We’d love to share any pictures or stories & memories you have with her, so please send them our way🙏🏽✨🫶🏽💕🎶
Cashapp $2GunzNdRozez
Cashapp 8282310541
Venmo -allen
PayPal
IFYKYK💛 If you don’t know, ASK SOMEBODY! Or do yourself a favor & Google her 😉
https://www.southernfoodways.org/awards/2020-ruth-fertel-keeper-of-the-flame-hanan-shabazz/