The Birthstone Center for Appalachian Perinatal Resilience

12/21/2025

Update: SOLD OUT!

We still have cookie boxes available! Need delivery? Message us!

Update: SOLD OUT! Thank you all so much for for beautiful spirit of generosity!

The Sweetest Way to Finish Your Holiday Shopping! 🎁

Did you miss our "Wrap & Wander" event? You can still grab a piece of the magic! We’ve curated a limited number of Holiday Variety Boxes featuring the very best of our cookie table.

These are perfect for:

✨ Last-minute co-worker or staff gifts

✨ A thoughtful "thank you" for a neighbor

✨ Bringing the dessert to your next family gathering

Price: $15 per box

📍 Pick-up available in: Franklin, Bryson City, & Sylva.

How to get one: Comment "COOKIE" below or send us a DM with your preferred pick-up town. These will go fast!

12/21/2025

Update: SOLD OUT! Thank you all so much for for beautiful spirit of generosity!

The Sweetest Way to Finish Your Holiday Shopping! 🎁

Did you miss our "Wrap & Wander" event? You can still grab a piece of the magic! We’ve curated a limited number of Holiday Variety Boxes featuring the very best of our cookie table.

These are perfect for:

✨ Last-minute co-worker or staff gifts

✨ A thoughtful "thank you" for a neighbor

✨ Bringing the dessert to your next family gathering

Price: $15 per box

📍 Pick-up available in: Franklin, Bryson City, & Sylva.

How to get one: Comment "COOKIE" below or send us a DM with your preferred pick-up town. These will go fast!

12/14/2025

✨ Wrap & Wander ✨
Saturday, Dec 20 | 11–5

Most of us have felt things get tighter this year. The days feel heavier. There may be fewer gifts under the tree, but the spirit is still here. Part of the beauty of this season is in the colors and textures—in the small acts that make a place feel more like home.

Bring the gifts you’re wrapping and let us take care of that part for you with donation-based gift wrapping. Then wander the tables and build your own Christmas cookie box, choosing from dozens of homemade treats laid out for you—fill a box with favorites to share or keep close.

Every dollar stays right here in our mountains, helping families through pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and the long in-between seasons where support truly matters. It helps us show up in hospital rooms and hollers, living rooms and late nights—with care that is steady, local, and deeply human.

This is an easy way to give.
A neighbor-to-neighbor kind of giving.

Come wrap. Come wander. Come help us make this season feel a little more like home in these mountains. 🤍

Can't make it and still want to donate?
Donation link in the comments.

12/04/2025

Sometimes the work we do at The Birthstone Center for Appalachian Perinatal Resilience breaks our hearts wide open… and reminds us exactly why we show up, even when the funding doesn’t.

A few weeks after Hurricane Helene, we visited a mother who had just given birth.
Her baby was two weeks old.
Her two older daughters were doing their best to be brave.
And her own mother was trying to hold everyone together.

Their home was gone.
Everything—washed away.
They were living in a single hotel room on FEMA vouchers, surviving on canned food because they had no kitchen, no stove, no way to make anything fresh.

When I asked the girls what would make their day the most, their answer cracked something open inside me:
“All we want is some of our mom’s broccoli.”

Not a toy.
Not treats.
Just broccoli.
Just the taste of home.
Just something warm and real in a world turned upside down.

So we searched the city for fresh produce and a little hot plate. The look in those girls’ eyes—pure joy over something so simple—brought tears to mine. Their mother held her newborn close to her breast, able to latch after some help from us, while her daughters ate warm broccoli for the first time in weeks.

This is what our work looks like.
It’s not fancy.
It’s not shiny.
It’s not often grant-funded or guaranteed.

It’s showing up for families with newborns who are doing their best to survive impossible circumstances.
It’s holding space for mothers whose bodies are healing while their lives fall apart.
It’s making sure babies are fed, parents are supported, and families know they are not alone.
And often it's doing so even if it means sacrificing our own wellbeing or our own needs.

We are already doing this work every single day… but we can’t keep doing it without community support.
Not because we lack passion — but because the need is growing faster than our resources. And because we cannot give up.

If this story moves you, if it makes you think about how much families carry silently, how much our region has endured the last year…

Please consider supporting The Birthstone Center today.
Even small gifts go directly to the families who need us most.

Because no parent should have to choose between feeding themselves and feeding their baby.
Because no newborn should face their first weeks without stability, warmth, and community.
Because sometimes something as simple as fresh broccoli can restore hope.

👉 Donate. Share. Tell a friend. Stand with us.
Together, we can keep showing up for families when everything else falls away.

💛 Thank you for being part of this work.
It truly means the world.

Donate here--->https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/donate-to-support-the-birthstone-center

12/02/2025

🌄 Giving Tuesday: Lending a Hand in Appalachia

For generations, our mountains have taught us what true resilience looks like. We know that caring for our neighbors is not just a job—it’s the way we live.

Here at The Birthstone Center for Appalachian Perinatal Resilience, we hold the line for the health of our community, driven by the mission to provide unconditional, culturally grounded, full spectrum perinatal support to families in Western North Carolina.

Right now, we need simple, tangible tools to help keep our doors strong through the winter and beyond. Every item on our Amazon Wish List is an essential piece of equipment for our daily work—from office supplies to keep us organized, to the lactation supplies that allow our providers to offer high-quality care.

🤝 Will you lend a hand this Giving Tuesday?

Click the link below to send a critically needed item directly to our clinic.

🔗 Our Community Wish List: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1CHB4E7GFLOWY/ref=hz_ls_biz_ex

Thank you for being a part of our village!

11/26/2025

Start your 2026 with a village behind you. ✨

At Birthstone, a non-profit serving all of Western NC, we believe that relationships come first and that every family deserves unconditional support.

We are driving perinatal resilience by offering FREE monthly community classes that honor your unique journey.✨

Whether you need guidance on breastfeeding, newborn care, or are seeking physical and emotional healing postpartum, we are here to walk that path with you.

Led by Brandi Harrison, IBCLC, these sessions blend evidence-based education with the gentle, holistic care our mountains are known for. 🌿

Come find your village, get grounded, and build confidence. Save your spot here 👇🏼

https://birthstone.intakeq.com/booking?categoryId=b110f5c8-52b7-4bdc-9c40-54821f1e1d3c

11/22/2025

Zumbini, what the heck is that?

Well come try it out and see. Join your kids in song and dance learning through play. A class created by educators introducing basic learning concepts, movement and musical instruments, this class makes learning fun.

Give us a try at the Birthstone center downtown sylva on THANKSGIVING morning for $5 with no commitment, if you decide you like it apply that $5 towards the upcoming spring session starting Jan. 8th. Only $95 for 6 classes held every other week or bundle with our Franklin session for $125 and enjoy Zumbini every week.

So, what are you waiting for, come move and play with us.

-As seen on PBS