SWANNANOA, N.C. — Neighbors in western North Carolina impacted by Helene are still working together to help everyone get back on their feet.

One woman has spent the last six months feeding her community, coordinating it all from the trunk of her car. 

What You Need To Know

  • Chef Cayte Gowan drives an hour into Swannanoa every day to serve people dinner

  • Gowan worked as a chef for 14 years before the storm

  • She worked in downtown Asheville, but after the storm, the business closed due to flooding

  • Gowan quit her job to cook for the community full time, and thanks to donations from around the state, she’s able to continue helping those who still need it

“Tonight is an Indonesian-and-Thai-style curry. So, it’s got a bunch of vegetables: Lotus root, cabbage, zucchini,” Chef Cayte Gowan said.

Gowan serves meals like this daily. Neighbors lineup for her meals every night, since just after Helene hit Swannanoa.

“And I try to always make sure that everything I make is fresh. Everything I make is, you know, going to be, like, gluten-free. Dairy free. I always have vegan options, but I also want people to be able to try new foods that they might not ordinarily be able to try,” Gowan said.

She’s a one-woman band, doing everything on her own.

“I do everything out of my own home. Everything, you know, everything is cooked from scratch, fresh daily by me. I do all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, menu planning, communication, etc.,” Gowan said.“I do everything out of my own home. Everything, you know, everything is cooked from scratch, fresh daily by me. I do all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, menu planning, communication, etc.,” Gowan said.

She drives an hour into town every day from her home in Mars Hill to serve people dinner.

Gowan says she only lost power and had some flooding in her backyard. So, with a working stove and clean water, she said she knew she needed to help.

Gowan worked as a chef for 14 years before the storm, including work in downtown Asheville. After the storm, however, the business closed due to flooding.

“I do evenings because, you know, the people I feed are the people who are still cleaning up their own homes, who are like, you know, they’re working and also cleaning and trying to get their life back together. So, when the sun goes down, they need food. And everyone else kind of stopped serving it like 6, 7 p.m. So, that’s when I will come out,” Gowan said.

She cooks these nutritious meals, because she says, if she was placed in the position of those she’s helping, she wouldn’t be able to eat because of growing up with celiac disease.

“So, growing up, I remember watching the devastation from Katrina and looking at the television and seeing, like, the interviews for the barbecue rally. And looking at it and going, ‘if I was down there, what would I eat?’ And the answer is, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to eat any of what was provided,” Gowan said.

And the way she cooks lets those who are vegan and have dietary restrictions have something safe to eat.

“I had a vegan woman who found me, very shortly after I started, and she’d been vegan for 10 years and was about to have to break her 20-year stint because she couldn’t find food. And she just pulled up to me one day wanting a hot meal, and I was like, ‘yes, it’s vegan.’ And she literally broke down and started crying,” Gowan said.

Gowan quit her job to cook for the community full-time. Thanks to donations from around the state, she’s able to continue helping those who still need it.

“I have depleted a fair bit of my own savings, but I feel like this mission is important and I know that long term, this is going to be needed. Because my goal at this point is to be able to provide low cost or no cost meals, healthy meals, to disaster zones, underprivileged areas,” she said.

Her background, she says, also plays a part in why this work is so special to her.

“I grew up kind of poor. Pretty, poor. So, food wasn’t always easily accessible and healthy. Fresh, clean ingredients were also not as readily available to my family,” she recalled. “So, my thing is being able to prevent it.”

And she plans to continue her mission. 

“People were super helpful in the beginning. But then the fires in California started, and it’s like suddenly we kind of got forgotten about for a while,” Gowan explained. “And it was scary because, you know, we’re not healed here. It’s going to be a long time before the mountains even begin to heal correctly.”

Gowan is working to become a 501 C3 charitable organization and is also looking into a food truck so that she can cook on the go.