In November of 2014, Chip Poston and his neighbor Carol Clark first read about the Virtual Village movement in a newspaper article. During the winter of 2014-15 we held several community meetings in South Toe and a Steering Committee was formed. We began operation of a Pilot Program in February 2017.
MY Neighbors is an all-volunteer eldercare network serving Yancey County, North Carolina. The roots of our vision are in the Village to Village Network, a group of “virtual villages” that have grown rapidly around the nation and has also spread internationally. Virtual Villages are grass roots, member-driven organizations where neighbors support one another in living safely and affordably in their own homes for as long as possible.
MY Neighbors is an all-volunteer organization with no paid staff. Volunteers provide all of the effort needed to help the elder Members we serve. We are a nonprofit corporation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, and a state recognized charity.
Meet the Board and Committee Activists
Following are brief bios of most of the key players in MY Neighbors:
*(Board Chair and Chair of the Volunteer Committee) Chip Poston taught school for thirty-five years at Arthur Morgan School and George School, an international Friends boarding and day high school in Newtown, PA. From 1993-1996 he was a peace development worker with the Mennonite Central Committee in Jerusalem and has since returned to Israel/Palestine six times leading groups. He is a member of Celo Friends Meeting.
*(Board Vice Chair, Medical Advisor) Stephen H. Powell is a retired physician who practiced internal medicine and geriatrics for thirty-five years. He was the founding medical director of the Presbyterian Senior Health Center in Charlotte and led an interdisciplinary team focused on maximizing vitality and quality of life for the older patients that were served. He has a long standing interest in health care ethics, policy and clinical operations. He is an active member of Temple Israel in Charlotte.
*(Treasurer, Finance Chair and Call Manager) Nancy Watkins is a native of North Carolina. She retired from the banking industry working in the mortgage division processing and underwriting loans along with checking compliance and Fraud Investigation. She has been in the Celo area permanently since 2016. She also volunteers with Higgins Memorial United Methodist Church and Feed-A-Child.
*(Board Member, Head of Membership) Penni Ackerman Powell is a retired clinical social worker and psychotherapist with a focus on children and families. She has been a board member for several non-profit organizations including Hospice of Charlotte. She is a member of Temple Israel in Charlotte.
*(Board Member, Recording Secretary) Jennie Boyd Bull retired to South Toe valley in 2015, following work as an editor, pastor, bookstore manager, librarian and archivist with nonprofits in Maryland and New York State. Raised in Knoxville TN, she is grateful to return home to the Southern mountains, where she enjoys teaching Tai Chi and Qigong, gardening with Dig In!, attending Celo Friends Meeting, and talking with folks during her weekly MY Neighbors Call Manager shift.
*(Board Member, Head of Technology) Paul Lundquist is an artist-blacksmith, internet technology person & computer helper living in Celo. He served as board member and president of the internet service provider main.nc.us, was on the founding committee of HandMade in America and created the Toe River Arts Council Studio Tour. He is doing the computer work for MY Neighbors and its virtual office as well providing computer support for The Toe River Skill Exchange.
*(Board Member, Head of Events) Gordia Robinson grew up in a four room cabin without electricity or running water in Busick. As the second of ten children she was caregiver for her younger siblings, walking them to the one room schoolhouse near Roaring Fork Falls. Her mother inspired a love of reading and learning in Gordia, who read every book she was able to acquire from the bookmobile. At 19 she left the mountains to travel with her military husband and raise a family. She lived all over the US and Europe, residing in Germany for 13 years. After returning to the US she became a Registered Nurse and began a home healthcare business in McDowell County. She retired to South Toe where her home looks out at Mt. Mitchell.
*(Board Member) Margie Lang was raised in Germany. She moved to the United States in 1969, where she and her husband Rick lived in Michigan for 28 years. They moved to the Mt. Mitchell Lands community in 2000, where Margie worked in Administration at Blue Ridge Regional Hospital and until she retired in 2014. Margie has a son, Christoffer, who lives in Orlando, FL. Sadly, Rick passed away in 2009 after 40 yrs. of marriage. Margie's volunteer journey began soon after retirement as a hospice volunteer. She then became a MY Neighbors Volunteer and joined the Board. When not volunteering, Margie enjoys hiking, knitting and working outdoors.
*(Board Member, Call Manager) Julie Spitzer grew up in Florida, then moved to Raleigh in 1988. She worked for IBM for 32 years, then another software company until retirement in 2019. She has lived full time in the Micaville area since 2016. She also volunteers with the ATRC, plays in our community orchestra (plays the bass), sings in her church choir, and is involved in a caregiving ministry.
*(Former Board Member) Carol Sasek raised the start up capital that helped MY Neighbors launch! She and her husband Joe are now residing in their dream home in Celo and host our bimonthly birthday parties! Her professional career has stretched from resource development to nonprofit management consulting, public education and real estate brokerage. Her community service, nonprofit board participation and volunteering earned her the National Points of Light award in 2008.
*(Former Board Member) Bill Schultz remains active as a Call Manager and Volunteer. He assists on special projects, fundraising, and in a host of other areas. Bill and his family moved to South Toe in 2004 from Portland, Oregon where he worked as an attorney, administrative law judge and mediator. He and his spouse Lisa have been married for over fifty years. They worked at the Arthur Morgan School for a few years before retiring. His interests include reading, woodworking and genealogy. Their daughter Katey Schultz and her husband Brad Quillen also live in the area.
*(Call Manager) Rachel Swinney served on the MY Neighbors Steering Committee until it graduated to being a Board. Over the years she used her education in Communication Arts through serving on numerous nonprofit boards. She worked with a battered women's shelter, a hospice program, a teachers’ association, a craft community, and with two historically Black colleges. Then she realized she wanted to serve folks in a deliberate healing way, so she has been a full time massage therapist for twenty-eight years and counting. She has lived in Maryland Virginia, Florida and Tennessee but recently moved full time to South Toe to develop her passion for homesteading.
Others who have helped us out along the way include Karin and Ron Rolett, David Johnson, Benoit Delcourt, Catherine Peck, Cynthia Sexton, Lee Rule and Ruth Ann Marotta. We have been blessed with a lot of human capital at MY Neighbors!