What a year it's been so far! We are finding joy in the simple moments and finding new ways to support the community, each other, and our networks.

We are also blooming in such delicious and abundant ways and have so much to share with you all about how our work is going since Hurricane Helene.

We have some exciting updates for you and can't wait to share more about what we are dreaming up for this coming season.

From September 30, 2024 to December 31, 2024, Aflorar provided--

• 104 instances of herbal mutual aid and/or mutual aid support
• served 47 different organizations and communities
• distributed 276 care kits and/or baskets
• served at least 806 people, and
• had four community work days.

We’ve started 2025 with providing from January to mid-February--

• 31 instances of herbal mutual aid support
• serving 23 different organizations/communities
• distributing 41 care kits/baskets, and
• serving at least 312 people!

At the end of 2024, we were still in crisis and scrambling to get our lives back in order as we got our people safely housed, supported our nervous systems after the storm, and hosted several healing spaces at the Healing Hub and in the community.

We are so thankful for those we have partnered with in this time and those who see us and our work. Y'all continuously show up and keep showing up and we are so in love with all of you and the work you do.

One event we would love to highlight is a partnership with Cuentos y Cafe where we served up books and tea at El Porvenir.

We sold books and served grounding and calming tea blends from Aflorar. This partnership was the best because we brought tools that families could take home to enjoy with their families. We also had story time and a hands-on activity with the children, during which we made delicious tea inspired by Kitchen Curanderas Nana Lupitas and the Magic Sopita book by Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz.

In February, Sarah traveled to Phoenix to attend a gathering of the Mijente La Vida Local projects. She connected with many amazing land-based, agricultural, and herbal programs across the US and Puerto Rico. From this she brought back many new friends and ideas to apply to the work in the South. La Vida Local supported Aflorar with its first donation to start up in 2020, and coming back to the origin story and work that started us was sweet medicine for the roots of our work.

We also dropped off and mailed herbal supplies to Hood Herbalism, Fertile Moon Midwifery and Wellness, and 50 community care kits to ché fm (@theblendedbeing) to distribute to families impacted by the Los Angeles fires. Thanks to Tyson Sampson, Corey Pine, Abby Artemisia, and afloraristas, who helped make this donation possible.

Donate Herbal Products and Supplies to Us
Check out our current list of needs below that we will use to make herbal care kits for families:

First, we want to welcome our badass herb lover and one of three co-founders, Sarah Nuñez, as the first paid staff for Aflorar!

WOW! 5 years of building and we have finally made it thanks to all of you and yours! Sarah works 15 hours a week for us as the Ecosystem Connector, connecting Aflorar to our larger ecosystem of partners, herbalists, friends, donors, funders, and work across Appalachia and beyond.

She is also coordinating the organizing efforts on the ground in Asheville at the Healing Hub and supporting dozens of organizations and communities with her healing touch and big heart.

If you want to reach her, email is best and she can be contacted at aflorarherbcollective@gmail.com.

In 2024, we became a project of the Southern Vision Alliance! We are so thankful for this partnership as our fiscal agent and a place for us to grow and seed all that we imagine. They support us with our finances, human resources, digital, and more! We are so grateful to you and all your staff, SVA! You can learn more about them here.

We want to introduce to you 2 new members to our advisory committee for Aflorar. Teresa Lajara supports our work in Kentucky, and Paulina Mendez joined us from North Carolina. They will join committee member Mari Mujica who has served in this role the past year. Thank you for taking the time to build and grow with us at this very important time.

We also welcome Camille as our Story Catcher and Organizer for a temporary part-time role with us through May. We will spend more time writing, collecting stories, sharing, and creating
zines, plant stories, and popular education materials for our distribution spaces, workshops, and more. Stay tuned for beautiful and creative work from Camille.

If you want to check out the zine we made in collaboration with Mijente in 2020, check it out here. We are excited to be able to create more work like this for our communities and people.

Welcome to ZsaZsa in a part-time role to help move and support the mutual aid and volunteers for Aflorar. Be on the lookout for more from them soon, and you can generally find them at our pop-up clinics, where they deliver herbs and support at our events and with our volunteers.

And last but not least, Isabella Joy Clark has been working on the land and apothecary since 2023 and we welcome them in as Apothecary Manager to help support the medicine making and stocking up of supplies and herbs for the work we are embarking on in 2025.

Welcome to everyone, and we thank you for all you do for us. We're excited to get all the herbal goodies moved to the people and grown for us and by us in 2025.

Join us this weekend, March 14th-16th at Organic Growers School which will take place at Mars Hill College.

Sarah Nuñez from North Carolina and Jesenia Avila from Kentucky will present a half day workshop on Herbal Community Care and Mutual Aid on Friday. We hope to see you there!

You can also find us at our merchandise table on the 3rd floor where we will have sweatshirts, t-shirts, stickers, bags, and herbal products for sale by some of our own staff. We will be joined by Cuentos y Cafe, featuring books on mutual aid, care work, and herbs.

If you can't make the events and want to purchase merchandise please reach out to us via email afloarherbcollective@gmail.com to coordinate.

We are now a Grace Partner with their SERVE program and are excited to welcome in new ways to work with faith communities throwing down for our people in times of crisis. This is exactly how Grace has shown during and in the relief and recovery stages of Hurricane Helene.

We are so proud of their work and honored to be in their circle. On May 18th, Sarah will join Grace Covenant congregation for a worship service. She is co-creating the service on Embracing Nature’s Elements, Daring to Dream of a Decolonized World. If you're in Asheville, we would love to see you for the 10am service.

We are so excited to launch our Aflorar Growers network this year!

Through this project we will be able to source the herbs for the blends and remedies we make for our care kits. We have 13 growers signed up to support us with growing several varieties of herbs and flowers across Appalachia, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Puerto Rico! We are super excited about this project and look forward to sharing updates this summer.

Thank you for your time and care in joining us and reading more about our work and the love we share with communities and each other. We are choosing justice, connection, and love every single day. Please join us, friends.

With love,
Sarah, Zsa Zsa, Isabella, Paulina, Camille, Mari and Teresa