George Real Estate Group Radio Broadcast

United Way's Kat Carlton: Leading Henderson County Through Disaster and Recovery

• George Real Estate Group

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Kat Carlton stepped into her role as Executive Director of United Way of Henderson County on October 1st—just days after Hurricane Helene devastated the region on September 27th. What followed was an extraordinary demonstration of leadership, community mobilization, and innovative problem-solving that helped Henderson County navigate its darkest hours.

"We didn't have power and internet at our office for a month," Kat explains in this powerful conversation. Yet despite these fundamental challenges, she and her team created manual systems that kept vital information flowing. They established physical routes to deliver updates to fire stations throughout the county, launched a landing page for nonprofits to coordinate resources, and—perhaps most remarkably—mobilized over 1,000 volunteers in just the first month after the disaster.

The conversation reveals the evolution from emergency response to long-term recovery through the Disaster Recovery Partnership, which now unites over 50 organizations working collaboratively to rebuild Henderson County. This partnership, fiscally sponsored by United Way, creates a streamlined experience for residents seeking help while preventing duplication of services—a crucial efficiency when resources are stretched thin.

What shines brightest throughout Kat's story is the spirit of her community. "Neighbors helping neighbors is really the core of our community," she reflects, noting how consistently people asked one simple question: "How can I help?" United Way's role in creating structured pathways for that generosity demonstrates why organized humanitarian response matters in crisis situations. As Kat emphasizes, the recovery work continues as a marathon, not a sprint, with their Days of Caring events in May already attracting hundreds of eager volunteers.

Want to support Henderson County's ongoing hurricane recovery? Visit liveunitedhc.org to donate, volunteer, or access resources if you've been affected by the disaster.

Speaker 1:

The George Real Estate Group radio broadcast is celebrating 10 years on WHKP. The George Real Estate Group is celebrating 10 years on the radio live every Thursday morning at 10.05 on WHKP 107.7 FM and AM 1450 and streaming online at WHkpcom. Each Friday morning at 845,. The George Real Estate Group presents the Hometown Hero Award to someone in our community who goes above and beyond to make our hometown a better place to live. Here's this week's Hometown Hero Show. Hometown Hero Show. It's 845 and time now for our George Real Estate Group Hometown Heroes Salute and every Friday morning get to talk with my friend Noah George and some of the leaders in our community also, and I belatedly get to wish you a happy birthday, sir.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Thank you very much. A lot to be thankful for.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I haven't seen you since the.

Speaker 2:

Masters either. Well, right what I mean. A lot has happened, no, I know, in the last week.

Speaker 1:

We get to uh gather every friday morning kind of recap the week, and and uh, we also take a little time to kind of recap the real estate market too, right? No, noah, well, we do.

Speaker 2:

And again, we're so grateful to sponsor the Hometown Heroes series here every Friday morning and meeting and sharing with our listeners incredible stories about men and women serving this community. And we're so grateful to serve the community through real estate. This is my 20th year with my broker's license and just so grateful. We've helped over 1,500 families with their real estate needs throughout the years, and just we're grateful. The markets, you know, over those 20 years the real estate market is evolving. There's an ebb and flow, there's ups and downs, but guess what? The thing that never changes is life goes on. Therefore, real estate goes on and people are buying and selling, regardless of the interest rates, regardless of the economy, because housing is essential in what we call home and it could be a really positive reason why someone's buying or selling, or it could be a challenging reason, but you know people are still moving ahead. We had three open houses this past Sunday and every single one of them was packed. We even had multiple offers on one of the houses. I mean the market's moving.

Speaker 2:

Great great, great. And the prices are. They were softening a little bit. The average single family home price in Henderson County right now is $544. Softened a little bit, it peaked out at one point at $551. But we're still. The last two years we've been holding steady at about 125 single family homes a month selling in Henderson County. But just to give a snapshot, in the last seven days there's 56 new listings but there's 57 homes that went under contract. So there's a pretty balanced effect happening in Henderson County right now.

Speaker 1:

Well, I mean, after all, it is Henderson, it is Hendersonville, come on.

Speaker 2:

And I would just encourage people, be careful. When you see the news that says the sky is falling, I mean, like, just take that with a grain of salt. You know every market's different, every community's different, and I got to say Henderson County and Buncombe County. I mean the market is very healthy, it's strong. Of course it's not what it was, but it's still at a very sustainable, healthy pace.

Speaker 1:

And you guys have your hands on the pulse of real estate all around Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina right?

Speaker 2:

Well, that's right. We do North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina. So if you're thinking of buying or selling or investing in real estate, or want to talk about your investments or tax strategies or giving strategies in regards to real estate, we can have that conversation. But we're grateful to serve the community. Find us online at realestatebygregcom, follow us on social media or call us directly at 828-393-0134.

Speaker 1:

Noah and I work together on getting guests in for our Hometown Hero series, and our guest today is one person that you have chosen Well actually I was going to let the nominator the nominator, Larissa Griffin, is here from United Way. Hey, Larissa.

Speaker 3:

Hey, randy, good morning. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

It's a pleasure to have you. We really appreciate it. How about you introducing our George Real Estate Group, hometown hero?

Speaker 3:

Yes, well, it is my honor to um. This morning's hometown hero is kat carlton from united way of henderson county. She's the executive director now and I'll let her tell you more about herself good morning kat thank you.

Speaker 4:

Good morning, how are you? I am well.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, what a beautiful day amen to that and a beautiful easter weekend coming up, so thank you so much for coming in here today. Uh, noah and I get to meet a lot of great people in our community, and especially so after the storm. We we just have lots and lots of heroes to honor during. Uh, that did so much during the storm right.

Speaker 2:

it was a remarkable experience, I think, for everybody and for the community, but for someone like yourself in the leadership role and so many people looking to what you do and Larissa was like we have to nominate Kat for all that she did specifically, I mean in the face of the storm and everything. But let's back up. How long have you been serving as executive director there?

Speaker 4:

Executive director. I've been serving since October. Congratulations. October 1st was my first day.

Speaker 2:

Talk about stepping into something, and then, what was the date of the storm?

Speaker 4:

September 27th Wow.

Speaker 1:

But you were the interim acting director during the storm right.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, rob and Morgan, our director of finance, and myself were interims for the six months prior.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 4:

I've served United Way of Henderson County since August of 2019.

Speaker 4:

So I've been there for six years. I've lived in Henderson County for over a decade from Saluda to Edneyville. I used to serve through Manor Food Bank and I was really amazed by United Way of Henderson County's approach to community partnership and support the neighbors and the community. And I came on board in 2019 and have been participating in different roles at the organization and so when the executive director opportunity came in, I applied for that position and I was really privileged to earn that, and it was supposed to start on October 1st and we all know what happened on September 27th. Fortunately, I had the relationships and partnerships and phone numbers in my phone because, as we all know, we were walking trying to find a spot to have one bar of reception maybe, if phone works, to call people, to make connections and feel, figure out what was going on.

Speaker 4:

And our mission to organize and mobilize community resources to improve the lives of Henderson County residents was more important than ever and we started organizing and mobilizing resources from day one In the first month after the storm, just to recap kind of what October looked like and we can get to where we are today. But you know, we showed up with emergency management and said what do you need. And in that moment they said we need people to run fire station routes so that we can get information to the fire stations throughout the county, because our technology is not working and we would meet at the central location each morning and pick up information sheets from Jimmy Brissy and two of our team members every morning would run to every fire station throughout Henderson County.

Speaker 2:

Physically deliver the information.

Speaker 4:

We organized the mobilized resources. When you didn't have technology. We created a landing page for nonprofits to share who's open when what resources you have what? Because, while we rely heavily on 2-1-1 and have a longstanding partnership with them, who connects tens of thousands of people to resources every year.

Speaker 4:

That wasn't going to work in that moment because we didn't know who was flooded out, we didn't know who had staff, we didn't know where supplies was. So we quickly started organizing and mobilizing around that so that nonprofits knew who was open and they started communicating together and we were sharing with the community. This is how you get help. At the same time, the county reached out and said we need help with volunteers for our resource hubs. We had the six resource hubs for a while as you remember and so we launched a volunteer platform, again with no technology.

Speaker 4:

We didn't have power and internet at our office for a month, right down on Fifth Avenue. We bought an inverter from two hours away, like three days before the power turned back on, because we were just like we've got to figure it out. But in that first month alone we mobilized over 1,000 volunteers 1,000 volunteers 1,000.

Speaker 1:

My gosh.

Speaker 4:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

I'm blown away.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, and I would talk every day with Karen from the county and she says we got the six hubs open. I need 25 here, I need 25 there, and even the night before we'd be updating it. We did calls to action to the community and the community showed up.

Speaker 4:

And the community showed up donating supplies and the community showed up volunteering and the community showed up in so many ways and it just shined a light of hope on. I always knew how incredible Henderson County was, and we're here for a reason, right, what a beautiful place to live, work and play. Some say right God's country, right, We've always known Henderson County's incredible, but when you see all your neighbors, many that that you've met some that you've never met showing up, and there's one question I kept being asked throughout all of that, and it was how can I help?

Speaker 1:

how can I?

Speaker 4:

and it was our responsibility to figure out the answer to that question and give them a way to help, because the organizing and mobilizing of those volunteers and of those donors and supplies. There's all this good intent and you have to create a path for it to help people and meet them where they are, and that's what we've really worked to do over the last six months.

Speaker 2:

I mean, it's a powerful example and, again, a reflection of the community that we live in and people wanting to come together and help and people that we heard story after story of people themselves had lost so much, but they were the ones showing up to volunteer as well.

Speaker 4:

Yes, yes, it's neighbors helping neighbors. It's really the core of our community and I'm very proud of where we live and the way everyone has shown up. And then there's a lot of groups that have come in to help in different ways from outside the community. And then there's our nonprofits that have been here before the storm and will be here after that, have all doubled down and are still at 200% to serve people, because the work is so far from being done right now and we are committed here for the long haul.

Speaker 1:

You're right, we're just it's a marathon. It really is, and we find people new in need every day. Uh, you are involved in a program called disaster recovery partnership. Is that right?

Speaker 4:

yes, sir, tell us about that yeah, you know, when you, the first phase is after disasters, that response and that emergency response, and I want to give kudos um that I could do every hour hour to our EMS and to our county management and our first responders.

Speaker 4:

John Mitchell and Chris Todd and Jimmy Brissy and everyone that, everyone in the county. That didn't matter what your job was before the storm. Your job was to serve in the highest needs right after and we plugged in where they said they needed the most help. After the emergency response phase, it really moves to the long-term recovery and it's the coordination of the nonprofits that are here, the groups from outside. There's incredible different church groups that have all come in and they each have a different skilled trade and expertise and there's a lot of coordination to make it so that you can help one individual have a streamlined experience to help make them whole again without having to answer the same questions every single time from every single organization and try to manage themselves how to put their house back together.

Speaker 4:

It's incredible.

Speaker 4:

But one group will do studs and drywall and another does roof, and another provides food and another and it's amazing but there's a quite a bit of logistics and organization to make that as seamless of an experience as possible for the client and also to connect them with those resources, and the disaster recovery partnership was created to do just that.

Speaker 4:

The mission of the disaster recovery partnership is to unite and empower henderson county communities in the face of disasters by promoting effective information sharing, simplifying access to critical resources for individuals and families and collaboratively addressing unmet needs.

Speaker 4:

And as we became moved into the disaster phase and we learned from other communities that have had hurricanes and natural disasters about what those next steps look like, they strongly encourage we create a partnership between all of these groups working together, and so we have over 50 organizations participating in it right now. A steering committee was created and that steering committee asked if United Way of Henderson County would consider being the fiscal sponsor for the disaster recovery partnership. And we brought that through our board and enthusiastically said yes, we will. It's a big lift, but it's an important lift and any new entity coming in has a hard time gaining access to funding and having the level of accountability and transparency needed to access resources from outside of our region and state to bring into the community. And because we have that long history, we're able to mobilize resources faster while this disaster recovery partnership is taking form, and this is the next iteration of the recovery efforts.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, how can?

Speaker 1:

people help.

Speaker 4:

How can people help People?

Speaker 1:

can help by donating by volunteering.

Speaker 4:

On our website at liveunitedhcorg, you can click on Helene Resources if you need help, and we have a list of local resources available in the community, or click on Helene Response to get an overview of the ways we've responded. We also I have to plug we have our Days of Caring come up May 9th and 10th, oh that's great Over 300 volunteers, 25 plus projects and there's still spots available.

Speaker 4:

But gosh, they filled quick. That first two weeks we were 80% full. That's amazing. People want to lend a hand and we want to make it easy for you to plug in. So go to our website at liveunitedhcorg and you can learn ways to get involved Fantastic.

Speaker 1:

And you can learn ways to get involved. Fantastic. We've got about a minute left and in that minute Noah has a certificate for you, kat, and some certificates to area restaurants and little goodies that we want you to take with you. And also take with you our sincere appreciation and our honor to honor you. It's fantastic what your organization has done and continues to do. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Speaker 4:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

It's amazing. Again, yeah, thank you for everything. And again, your passion, and it's so evident in your commitment and your desire just to continue to give back into the community and you were doing it before and now a different, a whole nother level. It's exciting.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining us for the George Real Estate Group Hometown Hero Series. We'll be back next Friday morning with another Hometown Hero.

Speaker 2:

If the story I shared with you stopped you in your tracks, you're not alone. People have been asking what happened next. Dr Robbins' car had plunged into a freezing river and, as a teenager, underwater and disoriented, she remembered her survival tip Blow bubbles and follow them. They will rise to the surface. She did, but when she reached the top, expecting air, she slammed into solid ice, Out of breath and nearly out of strength. She kept moving, desperately, searching for a break, and just when she thought she couldn't go on, a stranger appeared and pulled her to safety. It's a powerful reminder we can do hard things, but we don't have to do them alone. At the George Real Estate Group, we're here to help you through life's transitions, whether you're buying, selling or just trying to figure out your next move. The George Real Estate Group, because the right guide makes all the difference.

Speaker 1:

The George Real Estate Group is located in Flat Rock, north Carolina, near Hendersonville in Henderson County. You can find them online at realestatebygregcom. The George Real Estate Group can be reached at 828-393-0134 or stop by their office at 2720 Greenville Highway, flat Rock, north Carolina. Tune in live each week on Thursdays at 10 0 5 AM on WHKP 1 0, 7.7 FM and 14 50 AM, or stream online at WHKPcom or download these podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. The George real estate group brings you the WHKP hometown hero series every Friday morning at eight 45.