Asheville Greenworks unveiled

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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The local tree-planting and litter-picker-upper organization known as Quality Forward in Asheville for 35 years has changed its name. Here’s the announcement, tucked in the group’s newsletter:

Working with Design One, the Quality Forward Board has voted to create a new image and identity with a new name: Asheville GreenWorks.

After 35 years, it is going to take some practice, but it will come! The thought is that the new name reflects our mission more clearly to everyone. We will keep the mission statement: Working for a Clean and Green Buncombe County so all our friends around the county can still count on us to plant trees, build playgrounds and clean up litter. Look for a new logo to be unveiled soon.

And in addition, the group has moved from its long-time location on Page Avenue in downtown Asheville to a new hot street in Asheville, Depot Street:

To celebrate our 35th year, we are moving our operations down near the French Broad River at 357 Depot Street (across from the Fine Arts League and Siteworks Studios). Our new landlord is Carolina Cornerstone – a real fine bunch.

We had a great working relationship with owner Ken Kendall for over 20 years when he was head of Parks and Recreation maintenance. Now he, his wife Susan and partners have transformed the first floor of their office building into a green oasis – to fully appreciate the transformation, you would have had to see the dumpsters full of throwaways that cleaned out the now pristine first floor.

It originally served as Jerry Sternberg’s dad’s raw hide business that prepared hides to be taken to the tannery down the road. It was all hustle and bustle back then and now Depot is coming back up to the same level of vitality.