Community Member Profile: Forest & Eva
Forest and Eva are a father-daughter duo who volunteer ALL over town. We are so lucky to have them on our team as well. They show up to every event and spread the news about what's going in the city and where you can find resources (literally! Eva has a show on 103.3 Asheville FM.)
Thank you Forest and Eva for all your hard work and dedication to our community.
What is your best memory while spending time with us?
Forest: Watching Aaron, the cafe manager git R dun.
Eva: Watching Lynn pull up in a cow onesie probably.
How long have you been a part of Asheville Poverty Initiative? How did you first come to us/hear about us?
Forest: I first heard about yall 2.5 years when I moved to Asheville. I looked up places on the internet to get involved with the community and y'all were the first to come up.
Eva: I first came in with my dad and helped with community outreach.
How do you contribute most often to our mission?
Forest: Being part of the community and seeing what needs to go on at any given time. More specifically, with picking up food from different places around town, coming in and working in the pantry, serving tables, and just you know talking to people.
Eva: I come and help serve, and I help the people who came in here to eat get basic needs. I do outreach, bringing warm clothes, tents, and food.
How has your life or perspective changed since becoming involved?
Forest: I wouldn't say it's changed a lot, but it maintains a steady balance of just being a part of something that's a good community thing on different levels. Being a part of the community over time has definitely changed my life. I believe my life at home with my family is better. I believe my everyday routines are better. I believe I've been able to maintain things that in my life may have upset my life. You know just being a part of community has made me more able to make better decisions for my own well-being and family.
Eva: I do a lot of volunteering, literally everywhere, and 12 Baskets has so far been my favorite place to volunteer and it's the one place that I actually genuinely look forward to coming in and working even though the other places are fun too. But having a place where I like actually look forward to coming in and helping puts a better perspective on the rest of volunteering for me. So it kind of lets me like have a better perspective on all the stuff that I do.
What do you believe are the biggest obstacles to ending poverty in our community, or the best solutions in that work?
Forest: The American culture that we've made is kind of integrated in people, whether they like it or not, that we don't really care about other people. You can look at other societies that are a lot older than us. We're just on a basic level. They do care and they have a lot less than we have here. So I think bringing community to a bigger scale of people and having people get involved with it, open more people up as a whole to start working at those things you know. Mindfully.
What do you hope API achieves in the next 1-5 years?
Forest: I hope that API and what they do is shown to the rest of the country, to small cities, big cities everywhere, and so they can look at what we're doing and make what they're already doing or want to start doing work better. And I hope that we could branch out with 12 Baskets, maybe to like downtown areas and even other towns around here.
