Join us for the In Real Life After-School Community Celebration on April 26th at Asheville Middle School! There will be field games, snacks, and lots of great prizes. Families welcome!

Mosaic Realty’s 2nd annual
Art Walk & Benefit! - May 2nd, 2024

Join us May 2nd from 5:00-9:00 pm for Mosaic Realty’s 2nd annual Art Walk & Benefit! New this year: Mosaic and United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County have teamed up to raffle a Volkswagen ID.4 to benefit 15 local nonprofits, including the Asheville City Schools Foundation! 

This free community fundraiser, open to the public, will be hosted by Mosaic Realty, with each gallery highlighting a different local nonprofit. Take in the eclectic pieces from local, regional and international artists while learning about the fantastic work being done by each nonprofit.  There will be light fare and beverages as well as the opportunity to purchase raffle tickets to win exciting prizes at each gallery, with all raffle basket proceeds going to the highlighted organization.

Jason Reynolds presents Look both ways: progress and resistance in creating equitable education

February 29th, 2024

Hosted at the AB Tech CONFERENCE CENTER, our youth and community joined us for an evening with Jason Reynolds and Asheville High/SILSA high school student artists as they explored Looking Both Ways. Participants were invited to stroll the student art show while enjoying complimentary ice cream from The Hop and popcorn from Poppy Hand-Crafted Popcorn. Our first speakers were student winners from our spoken word contest followed by a 40 minute presentation and reading from Jason Reynolds, and ended with a 20 minute Q&A.

Jason Reynolds is the former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature of the Library of Congress — and a magnificent source of wisdom for human society as a whole. He’s driven by compassion and the clear-eyed honesty that the young both possess and demand of the rest of us. Ibram X. Kendi chose him to write the YA companion to Stamped from the Beginning. In his person, Jason Reynolds both embodies and inspires innate human powers of fortitude and imagination. Hear him on “breathlaughter”; the libraries in all of our heads; and a stunning working definition of anti-racism: “simply the muscle that says humans are human… I love you, because you remind me more of myself than not.”

Jason Reynolds — Imagination and Fortitude interview with Krista Tippett on On Being : Listen HERE

Asheville city schools alumni event

april 30th, 2022

In 2021, Asheville City Schools Foundation took financial responsibility for operating the ACS Alumni Center as well as responsibility for establishing an ACS Alumni Association. We are seeking 10-12 individuals representing classes from diverse decades (1970-2020) to become advisors for the center and the association. This team will meet 4 x per year and will connect other alumni to each other and to our current students and staff. We will also be considering a campaign to digitize the center making archival material available to visitors on site as well as through our website: www.ashevillehighalumni.com . Please join us from 10am- 12pm on Saturday, April 30th @ the ACS ALUMNI center if you or someone you would like to bring are interested in guiding the Alumni Center and Association. Our current high school culinary students will be preparing their famous breakfast biscuits and we will have plenty of coffee on hand! Current students participating in our DREAM mentor program, Racial Equity Ambassador Program, and The Writing Center- all programs operating from the Alumni Center- will be sharing their work at the event via information tables.

If you have questions, please reach out to me or to Brandon Whiteside (2010), our Alumni Center coordinator, @ brandon@acsf.org. Please RSVP to acsf@acsf.org.

Regional Conference sponsored by acsf

November 6th, 2021

African Americans in Western North Carolina and Southern Appalachia: Reparations, Revelations, and Racial Justice: The Path Forward

UNC Asheville hosted the 8th Annual African Americans in Western North Carolina & Southern Appalachia Conference,  Reparations, Revelations & Racial Justice: The Path Forward, on Saturday, November 6, 2021. The conference included networking, opening, mid-day, and closing plenary addresses, panel presentations, faculty and undergraduate student research presentations, and a virtual exhibit tour. 

Please click to view all presenters.  “We are thrilled that the conference was an opportunity and platform deliberately focused on healing, restoration, restitution, reconciliation and what Robin Rue called  ‘tangible amends’. To move forward with reparations beyond aspiration (the resolution), the conference provided dedicated space focused on collective liberation with the intent of synergistic impact with concrete tools, practices, and solutions for realizing reparations. We’re grateful that we're moving forward with Racial Justice at the center, along with insights, knowledge and the tools to achieve it!”

Co-Hosts: Darin Waters & Tiece Ruffin (Africana Studies)
Africana Studies Faculty: Agya Boakye-Boaten, Jeremias Zunguze, and Sarah Judson

Community Forum Hosted by ACSF

November 7th, 2020

Black Humanity Matters: Closing the Opportunity Gap, Part II, Black Children Thriving in Schools

Led by Dr. Tiece Ruffin, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Education at UNC Asheville