The sun illuminates Kristin Watson through the windows of The Tilted Map, a former-church-turned-cafe that supports the Mountain Aid Project.
Kristin Watson is quick to offer a coffee or baked good when people visit. Despite the weight of Helene recovery, her energy stays high and she’s all smiles most of the time.
It was an abnormally hot day for October when Kristin Watson, founder and executive director of the Mountain Aid Project (M.A.P.), puffed on an American Spirit cigarette in front of The Tilted Map, her nearly trademark cherry-colored glasses glinting in the sun.
A “meditation with nicotine,” she called it, before hopping from her seat to show off the raised garden beds surrounding the nonprofit cafe.
From basil to peppers to tomatoes, the produce had mostly been harvested and carted up the hill to a table where she and other M.A.P. workers gave it away to the community. What hadn’t been given away had been used on bagels and other baked goods in the cafe.
With Watson at the helm since its beginning, the nonprofit grew into a hub for nonprofits and volunteers in the areas surrounding Morganton, one that still works alongside families recovering from Helene.
“I’ve realized that saying the word disaster over and over every single day for almost two years is not good for you,” Watson said once she was sitting on an antique red couch inside the church-turned-cafe, rubbing at the threads. “I do think that there will be an opportunity to back off that disaster-Helene recovery, but we are working with RENEW NC, and there are 15 people who are in the approval and work phase to get houses rebuilt.
“Although, in our eyes, no, I’m not getting calls every day. No, I’m not out there trying to get food to people or whatever. But to those people, they still have months and months to go.”
Watson, who was raised in Hildebran before shipping off to college, studied chemistry, eventually working as a chemist before shifting to a warehouse and logistics role over multiple teams with Cardinal Health.
That’s where she was when Helene hit.
After starting M.A.P., she also took on a third role as a crisis counselor with Hope4NC, providing trauma-informed assistance for people struggling with mental and behavioral health or substance abuse in the wake of Helene
She worked in the logistics role until May 2025, “standing up” M.A.P. when she wasn’t at her day job. Then, she went full-time in Helene recovery, 16 to 18 hours a day volunteering and working in the community.
“I thought it would be over in less than a year, that I would get all of the in-kind donations out, and it would be gone, and I would be done and it would be awesome,” Watson explained. “But it has this mind of its own where every person that has come in and been a part of it, it’s like a soul alignment. … Everybody that comes in is like a thread of a quilt.”
Her role as a crisis counselor ended in August. Watson has gone from three jobs to two to one. She said the slowdown in workload has caused a lot of pent-up emotions from the past two years to bubble to the surface.
“I didn’t look at the trauma of sitting with the people who went through the loss of their homes,” she explained, tears welling in her eyes and her voice catching in her throat. “I didn’t take time to sit with that and process it because I was busy trying to be of service and be of help. … We feel like sitting ducks.”
Her usual pastimes — developing salves, foraging, and custom-making clothing — have fallen by the wayside.
“I’m setting up places and people to offer that and make sure everybody has a space for (decompressing), but when I go home, I get my laptop out and I work until I’m ready to go to sleep,” she said. “It brings me joy to think about gardening. It’s almost like my mind has to relate that to work, even though there’s an underlying thing that it brings me peace and joy. I can experience that if I do this.”
One thing she doesn’t put off, though, is spending time with her grandchild. She said when presented the opportunity, she doesn’t even check her calendar before agreeing to babysit.
She tries to embrace the “magic” of life and one example, she said, is a white butterfly that often visits the gardens behind the cafe or randomly pops up when she’s around town.
She feels it’s a “universal flag” that she’s where she needs to be.
Just a few minutes after the interview, she texted a photo of the white butterfly fluttering around the grounds of the cafe. She said she stepped outside to take a deep breath and “boom, there she was.”
