About Connect Etowah NC

Welcome to ConnectEtowahNC

Hi — I’m Karen Ponder (Karen at the parsonage).

A few years after COVID, I realized some of the isolation it started in me was still there. I’ve always been a social person, but one day it hit me that I wasn’t getting out much anymore, and I started wondering how many other people felt the same way.

ConnectEtowahNC grew out of that question.

The goal is simple: help create more kindness, connection, and opportunities for neighbors to spend time together, support one another, and participate in community life.

Some of what we do includes free community meals and creative gatherings where neighbors can meet, talk, make things, and spend time together.

But I also believe helping doesn’t always mean starting something new. Sometimes it means supporting the good things already happening nearby—sharing information, encouraging volunteer efforts, increasing visibility for local organizations, helping neighbors know what’s happening, or simply connecting people with each other.

I’m interested in people with ideas, skills, stories, experience, time, or energy they’d like to share.

Retired teachers. Gardeners. Artists. Helpers. Organizers. Listeners. People who notice needs. People who simply believe communities work better when neighbors care about each other.

If that sounds like you, I’d love more ideas and more people involved.

ConnectEtowahNC is supported by Etowah Presbyterian Church and community grant funding, with a simple goal:

Building community together.

You don’t have to commit to anything big.

Sometimes community starts with showing up.

— Karen Ponder
Program Director, ConnectEtowahNC
(Karen at the parsonage)


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