Carnaval returned to Cashiers on Thursday, September 19th at the Village Green! Nearly 300 local residents braved the sporadic sun showers for a an evening of music, dance, and amazing food!

We want to thank everyone who came out to the Franklin Skate Park to join the International Friendship Center and Boards 4 Bros for our third Come Skate Day collaboration.

Local congregations pulled together in July to help our pantry provide much-needed groceries from those in our community facing food insecurity.

Thanks to a grant from the Golden Leaf Foundation, the IFC is installing a new walk-in cooler/freezer that will provide twice as much refrigeration space and four times the freezer space of the current appliances.

IFC's Grupo Mujeres recently spent a Saturday morning with the good folks at Andy Shaw Ford in Sylva to get a crash course in essential automotive maintenance.

Over the coming months, we will be slowly integrating the MANNA Mountain Card system that streamlines our current intake process.

Over the last three months, independent surveyors spent some time at our pantry to glean information about hunger and food access from our clients. What they found has been a staggering reminder that we still have much work to do and we will continue to count on your support to meet these needs.

The IFC rides into 2024 on the wave of some much needed financial contributions from our donors and a local organizational partner.

The holidays should be a joyous time, but for many this time of year only exacerbates the struggles to make ends meet.

September was an incredible month for the IFC that included two major community events and an unexpected honor from our Highlands community.

Join us for the 12th annual Empty Bowls event at First Presbyterian Church of Highlands on September 24th, from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm!

This summer, we have hosted 10 students at Church of the Good Shepherd and provided them with computer training for everything from how to set up and access email to making the most of what Google Workspace has to offer.

We've now completed five jobs under our Healthy Homes Initiative grants from Highlands-Cashiers Health Foundation and Nantahala Health Foundation. Each job has been special to us as we have seen directly how these kinds of funds can impact the health and safety of someone's home. Yet, our most recent project has been truly powerful to watch develop.

The IFC received a two-year, $15,000 grant to support activities for our Grupo de Mujeres (women's group), including first aid and CPR classes, women's self-defense classes, and professional development workshops on topics such as entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and college applications.

After the success of last year’s Dia del Nino celebration, the IFC will once again be hosting a celebration of children at the Cashiers-Glenville Recreation Center on the first Saturday in June. Our hope is to make this year’s celebration even bigger and better than last year’s, with live musical and dance performances, more games and prizes, and, yes, amazing food!

One year ago this week we re-launched English Language Learner classes with our partners at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Cashiers. Today, a year later, over 100 students have taken part in our classes and some 20-plus volunteers from Good Shepherd and the IFC have provided meals and childcare for every one of those class days.

As part of a joint grant from Highlands-Cashiers Health Foundation and The Nantahala Health Foundation, the IFC is helping at-risk homeowners in Macon and Jackson Counties with repairs that directly improve the overall safety of their homes.

As we close the book on 2022, we wanted to take a moment to wish you all a happy and safe holiday season and a new year filled with joy and promise.

The International Friendship Center and the Literacy and Learning Center of Highlands are collaborating on a youth cooking project held at the LLC.

We welcomed around 400 of our friends and neighbors to IFC’s first ever Carnval de Colores at the Village Green in Cashiers on Thursday, September 15, 2022.