Climatetech ​‘free store’ opens to support hurricane-hit North Carolina

In the disaster relief industry, it’s dubbed the ​“second disaster”: a mass of donations, from food to bars of deodorant, that ends up rotting or collecting dust on shelves because they serve the wrong need or can’t be distributed.

Footprint Project — a small nonprofit that collects solar panels, batteries, and other so-called climatetech to deploy in the wake of catastrophe — isn’t immune to the problem of excess donations.

But in the region around Asheville, North Carolina, the group has implemented a solution: a clearinghouse for all the stray panels and other ​“loosies” given in the wake of Hurricane Helene’s devastation. Called the WNC Free Store, its products already provide power for a roving repair wagon, RVs and buses serving as permanent homes, and other residents still living in the storm’s long shadow.

Two new full-time staff members for the group, which is based in New Orleans, now head up Footprint’s permanent operations in Mars Hill, a tiny college town about 20 miles north of Western North Carolina’s biggest city.

One of them is Jamie Trowbridge. A former solar installer with an advanced degree from Appalachian State University, he said the Free Store suits the area well.

“It’s actually part of the reason I love Appalachia and the program I did at App State,” said Trowbridge, who was born in Fletcher, just south of Asheville. ​“There is a very strong do-it-yourself mentality.”

With his solar engineering background, Trowbridge had ​“lightly stalked” Footprint Project online for years, he said, impressed by the group’s hurricane response in Puerto Rico. After Helene hit in September, he connected with Footprint’s staff in person when both he and the organization reached out to his old employer, Sundance Power Systems, to offer aid in the immediate aftermath.

In the days and weeks after Helene, Footprint focused on deploying supplies, like solar trailers, that could be easily and quickly put to use, in many cases displacing noisy, polluting generators. By the end of October, the group had installed nearly 50 sustainable microgrids from Lake Junaluska to Linville Falls, serving recipients including a volunteer fire station, a trailer park, and an art collective in West Asheville.

More than four months later, with the region’s return to normalcy far from complete, Footprint staff are continuously cycling those initial microgrids throughout the community. But the area is also the perfect market for the Free Store products like solar panels that take a bit of know-how to assemble, Footprint says.

“We got such a large wave of donation offers,” said Will Heegaard, operations director for the group, ​“and we knew that there were a lot of locals that were requesting, ​‘Hey, can I just get a couple panels?’”

The first obvious customer for the Free Store was the WNC Repair Cafe, which travels the region hosting clinics for repairing all manner of household items.

“You can bring anything from your house, and they’ll help you fix it,” Trowbridge said of the group, which existed pre-Helene. ​“It’s the cutest little thing — a bunch of people helping each other mend their clothes or get the handles back on their toaster ovens.”

After Helene, chainsaws and generators needed mending, and the Repair Cafe rose to the challenge. Now, with the help of Footprint’s Free Store, the small group’s trailer includes solar panels for charging up tools and powering an air compressor.

Another beneficiary of the Free Store is in nearby Weaverville, where locals have set up a recovery center to find the heartbreaking number of bodies still missing in the region.

Then there are those who needed solar panels and batteries to make their post-storm homes more livable.

“Part of the housing stock out here is RVs and school buses,” Trowbridge said. ​“In North Carolina, the hippies do it and the hillbillies do it. People wouldn’t necessarily be living in them for the winter, but they’ve become occupied because people got displaced,” he said.

Since its official launch on Jan. 14, the Free Store has received 30 requests for equipment, with five fulfilled and counting, benefiting over 40 people, Trowbridge said.

With many Free Store customers connected to Footprint via word of mouth, the next challenge is deploying the products equitably, he said. The group also has a vision for a mobile aid unit — a beehive of volunteers and equipment — that can split off into ​“bees” working around the country on discrete missions, like purifying water.

When Western North Carolina, months or years from now, is fully recovered from Helene, the climatetech might be rented to towns and cities for music festivals and the like, helping Footprint pay its bills.

But that, in disaster-relief parlance, is ​“blue-sky stuff,” Trowbridge said. For now, ​“we’re still dealing with the recovery.”