Come Helene or High Water Fund

French Broad Destructive Flooding

On September 28th, 2024, at 10:00am our home and beloved historic communities of Marshall and Hot Springs were changed forever. Hurricane Helene brought the most powerful element in record breaking volume: WATER. The French Broad river rose 20 feet and ripped through Marshall and Hot Springs, decimating any and all structures in sight. Homes, businesses, schools, playgrounds, camping sites, powerlines, vehicles…Everything…nothing withstood the might of the flooding water. The remaining buildings are now muddy shells of what people - real people - who care for community and invested heavily into providing a service once operated. GONE, in a matter of hours…completely destroyed. EVERY business and resident in the town of Marshall and Hot Springs lost everything. A powerless, contaminated wasteland of what was a beacon of history, culture, and camaraderie.

Gut wrenching, yet extremely fortunate - exactly 28 days ago - we decided to move MoonMaid Botanical's location to a larger building in order to expand and open a sister company called Oasis Market. Where the community could purchase medicinal and eco-friendly items that were safe for the body and the planet.

Because of this, we did not renew our lease in Capitola Mill in Marshall, even though we adored our tenancy and community there; sadly, Capitola Mill majorly flooded, which would have resulted in a Total loss of our entire apothecary, crafting materials, mechanical equipment, electronics, and inventory. It is a surreal moment to walk amongst your friends and community members’ businesses and homes that have been destroyed, and know that would have been you just a few weeks prior…for the rest of our lives, we will be humbled and grateful why we chose to move. The Marshall and Hot Springs community took us in, accepted us, and supported us; these people helped us in so many ways. We missed all of this so much after our move, it was as if we felt like we made the wrong decision…sincerely, the first few weeks were us second guessing our decision and experiencing feelings of remorse for moving.

Oasis Market - A Silver Lining

However, TODAY…the unanticipated blessing of our move is NOW what fuels us! We are (attempting to) control our emotions over the events and are putting all our resources into AID immediately!! We are so blessed our new business location was barely impacted. In fact, we are one of the FEW businesses with power and clean filtered drinking water in our area, so we decided to open our doors and provide both for free to our community members in need! Today was our FIRST day operating as a Relief Beacon, so we are working hard to provide free food this week as well, as there are tens of thousands of people displaced and out of gas, food, water, internet, and electricity.

Because Transparency and Integrity is a principle for us, we are asking for donations and creating a donation fund for the below efforts that have been impacted by Hurricane Helene:

1.) Funding even more food items (past the $2,000 already donated), preparation and serving free hot meals for the community.

2.) Donating to the local businesses and community of Marshall, NC who have lost everything. Those without shelter, food, clothes, or toiletries are currently displaced and currently FEMA is insufficient, as well as our local shelters and emergency care response. These services often take a long time to respond, with such a widespread emergency.

3.) Providing free water, food, charging ports, products, or supplies at our new business located in Leicester, NC. Especially for those who cannot afford household goods and supplies. Our new location is on a highway "in between" three major cities that are all 80% without power still on Day 4 of the recovery efforts, for some even weeks left before their power is restored.

Also, not only limited to Marshall, Hot Springs, and Spring Creek, but we currently supply products to many small businesses in the cities of Asheville and Newport. We have many friendships and relationships fostered in these lovely, wonderful towns that were impacted so greatly. When the spaces are available once again to hold product, we will be working hard to be able to afford to replace ALL damaged/lost inventory at no charge for the many locations that support us.

Any of our customers who are impacted by Hurricane Helene will also receive products at no charge, as we also want to support those who have supported us.

Our Marshall, NC Story

Our names are Aaron & Ursula - a scientist and herbalist - who wild harvest and farm medicinal herbs on our mountain property deeply rooted in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains to create naturopathic medicines. One day, in our town of Hot Springs, NC - a popular eclectic travelers town - we crossed paths with a fellow master herbalist named Cynthia, who created the USA’s first hormone free, all natural Wild Yam Cream called Women’s ProMeno & Men’s ProAndro in 1995. After 29 years of formulating, she informed us it is time for her to focus on her and her family’s health and wellness. Over the course of the next year, we decided to continue Cynthia’s legacy, MoonMaid Botanicals, by merging our medicinal tea and liquid herbal supplement business with her product line. Our inspiration and passion is focused on providing aid to our local & online communities by crafting nutraceutical alternatives to synthetic over-the-counter and prescription medications.

During the transition, “Wild Yam Cream" began to go viral on social media - which was an incredible event to witness - because ProMeno and ProAndro had been most notable in medical and therapeutic clinics and in retail for health food shops for 20+ years. FINALLY, the power and potency of the Wild Yam herb was becoming mainstream knowledge; thus, after 29 years of Cynthia passionately sharing her expertise and wisdom, the world began to listen. At last, the originally indigenous medicine, which is worthy of going viral, was being highlighted for the hormone balancing benefits Wild Yam can aid with when used transdermally.

After the merge was completed, we decided to expand MoonMaid by moving the business to a larger crafting space due to heavily increased demand; however, our mountaintop farm is located in the small town of Spring Creek, NC, where commercial spaces are few and far between due to the rural area. Serendipitously, after exhaustive research, a door opened for us in the quaint town of Marshall, NC, which is a small town with big ambition for community, art, and progression. For many months, we made long and steep commutes from the mountaintop to the valley while we designed the new space for the expansion. Our focus was to ensure no matter how high the demand, we made sure each jar was still hand crafted with the highest quality, USA sourced certified organic ingredients. Given our passion, we became well accepted by the community as artisan crafters as our remedies blossomed around the town.

For exactly one year (and still counting), we worked an average of 100 hour work weeks due to our drive to grow to meet the demand of people’s health and wellness. With our utmost gratitude, the landlord of our commercial space in Capitola Mill set up the environment and facilities so that no one minded us being there until the wee hours of the night and into the early morning. The days began to blur together from working til the early AM's and then waking back up at 7AM to continue. On mainstreet Marshall, we became regulars by picking up coffee and breakfast every morning at Zuma or On Your Bike; then, come lunch and dinnertime, we’d simply cross the street to eat at Zadies or Marshall's Main Street Cafe so we could hurry back to work, as we were the pair of busy beavers. The close proximity and friendly mom n’ pop businesses became a support and lifeline for our intensive work life, and thus we became a support for these business owners that eventually became our friends and people we cherish.