Mountain BizWorks awards entrepreneurs

Sheryl Rudd, co-owner of Heinzelmannchen Brewery, and Jen Pearson, owner of Guadalupe Café, recently received the Mountain BizWorks Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award.

Heinzelmannchen Brewery, on Mill Street in downtown Sylva, offers six beervarieties as well as non-alcoholic root and birch beer. Rudd and co-owner Dieter Kuhn opened the brewery in 2004.

Guadalupe Café is a tapas and wine restaurant with a Caribbean influence located on West Main Street in downtown Sylva. Pearson opened the Café in 2003.

Mountain BizWorks, previously known as Mountain Microenterprise Fund, offers training and financing opportunities for entrepreneurs. Call 828.253.2834 for information, or visit www.mountainbizworks.org.

Community Fund recipients announced

The Jackson County Community Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2007 awards from the Community Fund, said board president Bill Kirwan.

This year’s nonprofit recipients include:

• Catch the Spirit of Appalachia, for publishing costs for a wild flowers/cross-stitch book.

• Town of Dillsboro, for the cost of printing a historical tour brochure.

• The Blue Ridge Mountain Health Project for dental instruments and an autoclave sterilizing machine.

• Fontana Regional Library, to support the Reading Rover program.

• Downtown Sylva Association, formerly SPIR, for material and labor costs to construct the pavilion in Bridge Park.

• Cherokee Challenge youth activities summer program for Jackson County youth.

• Jackson County Genealogical Society for the publishing cost for 20 volumes of cemetery book.

“These grants are important to our community,” Kirwan said. “Many programs would not be possible without the generosity of many individuals and organizations that have supported Jackson County’s Community Fund.”

Frizzell named Educator of the Year

The American Legion’s William E. Dillard Post 104, comprised of military veterans of Jackson and Swain counties, named Dr. Nathan Earl Frizzell Jr. its 2007 Educator of the Year during a June 6 assembly at Cullowhee Valley School.

Frizell is principal of Cullowhee Valley School in Jackson County.

Before becoming an administrator, Frizzell was a teacher in Transylvania and Jackson county public schools. He has earned masters degrees in education and in history at WCU, as well as educational specialist and doctor of education degrees. Dr. Frizzell has been principal of Cullowhee Valley School since 2005. He and his wife Jill have three children.

Goodwill opens donation center in Waynesville

Goodwill Industries of Northwest North Carolina opened a new attended donation center at the Kmart in Waynesville that accepts clothing and household items that will be sold in Goodwill’s stores to underwrite job training and placement programs offered at the organization’s eight training centers located throughout northwest North Carolina.

The Waynesville site will be open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Sunday from 1 to 6 p.m. An attendant will be present during these hours to assist with donations and to provide a donation receipt, if desired.

Goodwill operates six retail stores in Western North Carolina including three in Asheville, one in Fletcher, one in Hendersonville and one in Canton at the Canton Plaza Shopping Center. For more information visit www.goodwillnwnc.org.

Childcare offered at Waynesville rec center

The Waynesville Recreation Center will offer child care at the Center from 8 to 10 a.m. for children up to 6 years of age. This will take place Monday through Friday and the cost is $3 per child for members and $4 for non-members.The Center will also have “Morning Out” for ages 2 to 5 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday though Friday. Parents are allowed to leave the grounds at the Waynesville Recreation Center. The cost is $10 for the first child, $8 for the second child and $7 for the third child. For more information about child care at the Waynesville Recreation Center please call Rebecca Boswell at 828.456.2030 or email wrcasst.programs@charterinternet.com.

REACH launches job training programs

REACH of Jackson County has established two programs designed to find solutions to problems that prevent people from finding meaningful employment.

The New Choices program offers resources in supporting each individual’s life and educational dream. New Choices is for both men and women and its purpose is to help individuals overcome such barriers as self-esteem or negative job experience issues which can prevent them from qualifying for the work they truly desire.

The Employment Life Skills Training Program is a curriculum for women that includes helping them write appropriate resumes and providing job coaching while on the job. These programs provide assistance for people who are working on their GED, continuing their education as adults, involved in mentoring programs, and involved in general life skills coaching.

The New Choices Coordinator, Nancy Day, and the Employment Skills coordinator, Linda Gillman can be reached at 828.631.3616.

WestCare adds new ambulance

WestCare Emergency Medical Services added an additional ambulance in June to the Qualla Station on West Piney Mountain Road in Jackson County.

Before this recent addition there were only two ambulances serving the Jackson County area. The Base 1 ambulance, located at Harris Regional Hospital, covers the Sylva and Balsam areas. The other ambulance is located at Base 2 on Old Settlement Road and covers the Cullowhee, Canada, and Savannah areas. Due to a high call volume and the need for better response times, another ambulance has been added at the Qualla Station, now Base 3.

“Adding this ambulance will provide quicker response times insuring that patients arrive at the hospital with better quality care in less time,” said Toby Moore, director of WestCare EMS.

The new ambulance will run Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and will cover the areas of Qualla, Barkers Creek Community, Wilmot Community, and the lower end of Dillsboro.