December Spotlight
Area newsmakers
Women Brewing Up Business
Breweries are gaining momentum in the ILM, and two local women are not taking the backseat for it.
LISA OWINGS (above) is the owner of Broomtail Craft Brewery, a nano-brewery set to open in early 2014. She is in the process of setting up her space for production, distribution, and tasting activities at 6404 Amsterdam Way.
Owings and her husband have been brewing beer at home for the past thirteen years and wanted to start a new chapter.
Michelle Peck co-owns Wilmington Homebrew Supply with her fiancé John Savard. The company, which has been a retail store on Wrightsville Avenue, is moving to 824 South Kerr Avenue and adding a brewery and beer garden to open in the spring.
Abrams Wins Emerging Writer Award
University of the North Carolina Wilmington alumni and faculty member HANNAH DELA CRUZ ABRAMS was named a recipient of the 2013 Whiting Writers’ Awards.
The national award of $50,000 each is given annually to ten writers “with exceptional promise and talent.”
Previous recipients include Jonathan Franzen and Amy Wilentz.
The Madras Press published Abrams’s 59-page novella, The Man Who Danced with Dolls, in 2012.
Abrams is currently at work on her memoir, The Following Sea.
Half United Included in Toms Shopping Site
Jewelry from the Wilmington company HALF UNITED was included the TOMS Marketplace website that launched in November.
The partnership had been in the works since early summer of 2012. HALF UNITED is among thirty giveback brands that were picked for the shopping site. Each brand follows the same social entrepreneurship model as TOMS, a shoe and eyewear company that makes donations based on purchases.
“By expanding our efforts as a business, we’re able to expand our giving,” says Carmin Black, one half of the brother-sister duo that founded HALF UNITED in 2009. The company gives away half its profits to “fighting the global hunger crisis.”
To date, the company has provided more than 85,000 meals to children, many of whom live in the Wilmington area.
Pearce Retires From Elderhaus
LINDA PEARCE, CEO of Elderhaus Inc., will retire at the end of this year after more than three decades at the company.
Pearce founded Elderhaus in 1980 and initially only operated it two days a week. Under Pearce’s leadership, the program flourished into a multimillion-dollar corporation.
A daytime senior care center, Elderhaus also became the first in North Carolina certified to offer the Program of All-Inclusive Care of the Elderly.
“My contribution has been miniscule, and working with families has been a blessing in my life of service to others,” Pearce says.
“I have no doubt that Elderhaus will not only continue to grow, but thrive, and its legacy of service and advocacy for the elderly and their caregivers will always remain its first priority.”
