The Veronica Edwards Show
Welcome to "The Veronica Edwards Show". On this podcast, we navigate general financial topics useful for your personal and business growth through unapologetic, honest, fun conversations with local for-profit and non-profit business owners and community leaders. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast so you never miss a single fun and informative conversation.
The Veronica Edwards Show
Veronica Edwards Show: New Beginnings: Season 5!
In this episode of the Veronica Edwards Show, host Veronica Edwards shares her journey back to podcasting after a significant hiatus due to Hurricane Helene. She discusses the impact of the hurricane on her community, the resilience shown by locals, and her transition to an independent podcasting platform. Veronica also outlines exciting new segments and guest appearances planned for the upcoming season, emphasizing the importance of community support and entrepreneurship.
02-04-2025
Welcome to the Veronica Edwards show, where we have fun financial conversations that everyone listening can apply to their personal and professional life. I'm your host, veronica Edwards, and I'm so excited to be back in 2025. We have a new home, we are independent and this is the first time ever, the show is 100% sponsored by Balance, virtually. I definitely do want to thank the Biz Radio family, especially Matt and Tan, the creator, for allowing me to have the Veronica Edwards show on the Biz Radio platform for the last four years, but unfortunately, due to Hurricane Helene, we had to transition into a different platform. But again, I definitely will always be grateful to biz radio and making this transition so easy. So let's jump right into what's been taking place since the last time that I chatted with you guys. So I last recorded in September and one of the last shows aired the beginning of October. And if anybody's been watching the news or you know me, we were affected September 27th with Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina, in Western North Carolina. So Hurricane Helene was one of the deadliest US mainland strikes since Hurricane Katrina back in 2005,. So 20 years ago. And just some facts, because you guys know I like the facts to let you know what we've dealt with in the last four months. You know we had over 19 inches of rain in two days. We had over 50 mile per hour gusts. We had over 600 road closures, including I-26 and I-40. Some parts of that highway is still closed. You cannot get into Tennessee through 40.
Speaker 1:Currently in North Carolina 60 billion not million 60 billion in damages and for us personally my family we went without power for nine days. We had no water for 17 days and, most importantly, no wifi for 24 days. So public schools were closed for four to five weeks. Many businesses were completely destroyed. We have two major rivers that flooded. The French Broad River reached 25 feet. The Swannanoa River reached 26 feet. These rivers usually crest at one and a half feet, just to put it in perspective. So we basically were flooded and we're surrounded by mountains, so we were just stuck. I mean, these are records that go back over 200 years, like even some for Swannanoa going back to the 1700s. So just wanted to say it's been a lot going on, but we are so thankful We've been using that logo Asheville Strong.
Speaker 1:We've been hanging in there. The community has really pulled together. That's one thing that I noticed the differences between the pandemic that took place in 2020 versus Hurricane Helene. It brought the community together. We weren't isolated. We couldn't be isolated because we went, as I said, nine days without power and Wi-Fi and water, which means we had to go out for everything. So there were T-Mobile, verizon, all of these different booths and mobile areas where you can get Wi-Fi. There were water stations where you can get fresh water so you can then cook and then you can take baths. We had to boil our water on the grill. I mean, it was all kinds of stuff. We were listening to the radio to get updates on the news. So it really was a humbling experience. It really showed us how blessed we really are to have a roof over our heads, to have water, to have electricity. Wi-fi is like a luxury. Now, you know, we're so thankful that we didn't have any injuries for our family. Our fence just went down, but it definitely kind of put things into perspective, for me at least personally, of what's important and what's not, and I'm just again so thankful that, even though it's been four months, that I'm able to come back and I can update you guys and we can continue forward with the Veronica Edwards show.
Speaker 1:And a lot of people ask me before we move off of Hurricane Helene is you know how can we support Western North Carolina? I tell people to go to AshevilleNCgov and they have all kinds of information of how you can support people in Asheville. But there's also different support efforts for anybody in Western North Carolina and honestly I say, just come up to Western North Carolina. Tourism brings in $3 billion a year and supports over 30,000 jobs and just last quarter, after the storm in October, november, december, tourism was down by 70%. Lodging was down by 30%. These are like the pandemic type rates when people cannot get out. So that's an easy, sure way that you can support us. The Biltmore is back open. There's still a lot of restaurants and breweries open. They're opening up the Blue Ridge Parkway, a lot of the outdoor adventures with kayaking. So we really would love if people come back and financially support Western North Carolina by visiting.
Speaker 1:So again, this kind of accelerated me going independent with the show. It was something I was thinking about doing, but I just was nervous. So, as we've talked about before on the show, sometimes, sometimes some bad things have to happen. I hate that that happened. Some people lost their lives, lost their jobs, but sometimes things like this has to happen to push us out of our comfort zone and do the things that we've been saying we wanted to do for a while, but now we have no choice. So here we are.
Speaker 1:I will be celebrating four years having my show, I believe, so this is officially season five. So I'm super excited to be independent after four years and I still have my same producer. I want to shout out Aaron Matan, who's also my concealed carry instructor and security instructor, and he will definitely be on the Veronica Everett show season five talking about the importance of all the gun laws and safety, and that's something that my family takes very seriously. And, stay tuned, I will be carrying concealing, of course. So this season I'm so looking forward to having young adults and teenager entrepreneurs. That's something that I wanted to do before the storm, but of course, things happen. I also want to continue having a very interesting conversation.
Speaker 1:One of the most popular shows that we've had in the last four years is when I had good friend of mine, lakeisha Moten, on, who's a master's candidate at the University of Maryland for medical cannabis science and therapeutics. So she's going to be my first guest and we're going to be talking about pediatric medical cannabis, which I know can be very taboo. It's not a kid just sparking up. It could be gummies, it could be oils. There's all kinds of things that are out there for pediatric medical cannabis. So stay tuned for that, because that is going to be my first show with my first guest in 2025. So that's going to be coming on later this month where we're going to have a tax CPA chat with a friend of mine and fellow CPA, ms Elena Anthony.
Speaker 1:We also are bringing back small biz tips with Ebony Sullivan, coo of Cassie Electric, the only majority Black female owned electrical business in South Carolina, and that was a very popular, reoccurring show where we give small business owners different best practices and especially we try to relate to double minorities like myself and Ms Sullivan. We also are going to bring also friends to the show. Ms Diana Castile, on owner of Pies by Dye. She is a social media sensation. She makes gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free desserts. I just had an amazing sherbet shortcake that I ordered from her for my husband's 43rd birthday. Mr Carlos Edwards, he will also be on the show. He's always dying to be on the show, you know, so I got to throw him a bone. He's going to be on the show as well. So I just encourage those listening.
Speaker 1:If you have any ideas or if you would like to be on the show, you can go on my website, balancevirtuallycom. Hit, contact us. Let me know if you want to be on the show, any ideas? You also can send me a DM. I'm on TikTok, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram because we really want to continue pushing the envelope with the show. Now that we're independent, we could talk about whatever we want to talk about. The show will still have a focus on folks that are doing things in the community, if it's through nonprofits, if it's through for-profit. So we're still all about entrepreneurship and positivity. But at the same time, there's all kinds of things that we can talk about that can benefit us as a whole. And, of course, this show is airing in Black History Month. We still celebrate Black History Month here on the Veronica Edwards Show.
Speaker 1:So, again, I'm just excited to be back. I'm so thankful and grateful that we're on the other side of this storm. We still have a long ways to go. Like I said, we had over 600 closures. There's still people that don't have electricity, there's still people that are missing. So we're still pushing forward and I'm just thankful that you guys have continued to listen because, guess what? I've been checking the stats and even though I have not had a new show in the last four months, we're almost reaching 5,000 downloads. So I think I've had over 500 downloads during this break. So I appreciate you guys. So we're going to be pushing that 5,000 downloads for season five.
Speaker 1:So again, I'm back. I'm excited. We're going to have new things. We're going to start adding some video to the podcast in addition to audio. We're going to definitely be bringing in new segments, things that you guys want to talk about. So please stay tuned.
Speaker 1:You can listen to this episode, prior episodes at VeronicaEdwards, at Buzzsproutcom. You can also find all the prior shows and the current show on my website, balancevirtuallycom, and if anybody's interested in being a sponsor, you definitely can contact me and we can set you up with a press kit of what we can provide in different sponsor levels. But again, we're just happy to be back in 2025. So stay tuned. We will have two episodes typically a month. I will be providing social media updates with my social media and marketing ambassador, ms Jylan Farr, who's a new mommy. That also happened around the time of the storm, so just a lot of good things. Yes, we had a major, major natural disaster, but so many beautiful things bloomed out of that and I just want to continue spreading positivity, spreading good information to you guys. So stay tuned, because the Veronica Everett Show is back.
