Appalachian Herb Collective

The Appalachian Herb Collective (AHC) began as an Herbal Re-leaf effort, created in response to the devastation inflicted throughout our area after Hurricane Helene decimated and displaced so many in September of 2024. We have since grown into a living network of herbalists dedicated to community care. What started as urgent relief has become a long-term commitment to free mutual aid herbal clinics, community classes, and medicine-making gatherings across Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. With your support, we continue to nurture collective resilience, protect native & medicinal plants, and ensure that herbal knowledge and remedies remain accessible to those who need them most.

Support Our Efforts

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From Relief To Resilience

What began as an emergency response became something much bigger: a powerful example of what can happen when herbalists organize, share resources, and put their knowledge into action. The herbalists who came together through the Appalachian Herbal Collective are independent practitioners, medicine makers, growers, educators, organizers, and community members united by a commitment to community herbalism and action. While our collective response to Hurricane Helene brought many of us together, the work did not end when the immediate crisis passed.

Today, herbalists throughout our community continue serving in many different ways, offering free and low-cost herbal pop-ups, creating scholarships and sliding-scale opportunities that make herbal education more accessible, sharing medicine and resources with neighbors, and organizing support for communities affected by natural disasters and other tragedies across the country. We believe herbalism has an important place in mutual aid. The knowledge, medicine, relationships, and community networks we build every day can become powerful resources when our communities need them most.

We are keep this website alive not only as a record of what our community accomplished after Hurricane Helene, but as a living resource and model for community herbal action. We hope the experiences, relationships, and lessons gathered here can help herbalists in other communities imagine how they might organize, prepare, collaborate, and respond when care is needed. The Appalachian Herbal Collective will continue sharing resources, highlighting community herbalism, supporting mutual-aid efforts, and celebrating the many ways herbalists are putting their knowledge into action.

Herbalism is community care, and community care is something we continue to build together.

The Story Behind the Work -
Learn From Our Response

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The herbal mutual-aid network that emerged in response to Hurricane Helene did not disappear when the immediate disaster response ended.

Across Appalachia, herbalists, clinics, medicine makers, educators, and community organizations continue to offer herbal care in their own communities. Some of the original mutual-aid locations remain active, while others have evolved into free clinics, community pop-ups, educational programs, medicine shares, and other forms of accessible herbal care. Below, we continue to highlight independent herbalists and community-based projects carrying this work forward.

Many locations still operate independently and may offer different services, hours, and ways to participate. We encourage you to connect directly with individual projects for current information. Looking for herbal support? Explore the locations below to find community herbal resources in your area. Doing this work in your own community? We also want this page to help herbalists find one another, share ideas, and see what community-centered herbal care can look like in practice.

Community Herbalism & Mutual Aid

Mars Hill

Asheville

Marshall

Candler

Erwin, TN

Swannanoa

Blk Mountain

Barnardsville

Support our Efforts

Every fiscal contribution helps us continue our efforts to offer free herbal remedies and consultations to our affected community

DONATE HERE

Collaboration in Action: AGUA DE LA MADRE

During our Hurricane Helene response, the Appalachian Herbal Collective was incredibly fortunate to collaborate with Anima Mundi Apothecary and Rising Appalachia on Agua de La Madre, a special product created to raise funds in support of our herbal mutual-aid efforts.

Proceeds from this collaboration helped fuel our free herbal clinics and community medicine shares at a time when the need for accessible care and resources was immense. It became a beautiful example of how herbalists, makers, artists, businesses, and community members can work together, each contributing what they have, to support a larger collective response.

This fundraising collaboration has now ended, and proceeds from current sales of Agua de La Madre no longer benefit the Appalachian Herbal Collective. We are keeping its story here because it represents an important part of our Hurricane Helene response and a model of the kind of creative collaboration that can make community herbalism possible.

Mutual aid does not have to take only one form. A product, a fundraiser, donated medicine, a free clinic, shared space, transportation, education, or simply connecting people with the right resources can all become part of a community response. Agua de La Madre showed us what can happen when collaboration becomes action

A TRIBUTE TO WILD LANDS & SACRED WATERS

A vibrant herbal myst to support the relief work of Hurricane Helene and the Southern Appalachian mountains. A portion of proceeds went directly to support the Appalachian Herb Collective. This is a powerful, intentional way to nurture both body and community as we work to strengthen herbal knowledge and access here in Western North Carolina.

Order Here

Herbal Donation Requests

One of the most important parts of organizing our herbal mutual-aid response was communicating clearly about what our communities needed. We are preserving our original 2024 Donation Request here as a practical example of how herbalists, medicine makers, growers, businesses, and community members were invited to contribute to the Hurricane Helene response.

The response was extraordinary. More than $100,000 worth of herbal medicine and supplies were donated, and those resources were distributed through free herbal clinics, community herbal shares, and mutual-aid efforts serving communities affected by the storm.

The list below reflects what we were actively requesting and utilizing during that response. This is an archive of our 2024 request and is not a current call for donations. We hope that by leaving it publicly available, other herbalists and community organizers can use it as a starting point when thinking about what medicines, supplies, systems, and relationships may be useful when responding to a disaster in their own community. Every disaster and every community is different. This list isn’t intended to be a universal formula, but rather a real-world example of what was useful to us during Hurricane Helene.

Hurricane Helene Original Donation Request

The information below has been preserved from our 2024 Hurricane Helene mutual-aid response.

Thank you so much for considering a contribution to our herbal relief efforts here in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. Our community remains in great need of herbal care, and we have many dedicated volunteers on the ground ready to distribute herbal products, first aid supplies, and other essential medicines. In the wake of Hurricane Helene, many people have lost everything, and your support helps us continue this vital mutual aid work. We are humbled and deeply grateful to all who have reached out to help.

To ensure safety and quality, please only send formulas that are:

Properly labeled with all ingredients listed in descending order
Clearly marked with the maker’s contact information
Made within the last two years
Labeled with expiration dates

Here is a list of items that will best serve our community — please send what you can within these categories. To help us stay organized, we kindly ask that you include a packing list and tracking number with your shipment. Shipping details can be found on our Contact page.

Thank you for your generosity and for standing with us in this essential work!

Bulk dried medicinal herbs for teas, formulas, poultices, steams, baths, infused oils, and community medicine making. We welcomed a wide variety of clean, properly identified and labeled dried herbs, with particular need for herbs supporting the nervous system, respiratory system, immune system, digestion, pain and inflammation, sleep, and general wellness.
PTSD, First Aid, Trauma, Stress, Sleep, Pain, Lung/respiratory and Immune Support
Lavender, Roman or German chamomile, Frankincense, Lavender, Eucalyptus radiata, Tea Tree, Oregano Oil, Roll-ons, spirits, inhalers or spritzers would also be of great value
Lemon Balm, Motherwort, Chamomile, Lavender, Skullcap, Passionflora, Rose, Hawthorn
Wild Lettuce, Valerian, Willow, Meadowsweet, Black Birch, Hops, California Poppy, Kava Kava
Echinacea, Elderberry, Medicinal mushrooms, Calendula, Astragalus, Ginger, Oregano, Garlic, Olive Leaf, Turmeric, Fire Cider, Elderberry Syrup (shelf stable), Respiratory
Liniments, Topicals, Salves
For stress, sleep and immune support. Fire cider, glycerites, and flower essences.
Liver and gallbladder support herbs including bitters, cholagogues and digestive enzymes.