Building Bridges of Asheville: Fall 2025 Registration (9 Weeks)

PLEASE READ:

Fall 2025 In-Person Session

Dates: Mondays, September 15 - November 10 from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM. (*Note: Make-up date is November 17 in the event that a previous evening is canceled due to inclement weather or for any other reason. Please reserve November 17 on your calendar as well.)

Location: This session will take place in-person at the Omega Middle School Community Center/Auditorium, 62 State Street, Asheville, NC 28806. Free parking is available on-site. Please let us know in your registration of any accessibility accommodations you may need in order to attend (e.g. ramp, elevator, sound, video, or other accommodations).

This session will only be offered in-person - no virtual option is available at this time. We hope to be able to provide this option for future sessions of Building Bridges.

Each nine-week Building Bridges session offers education and dialogue about the dynamics of racism and is an opportunity to explore how race has impacted our relationships, communities, and institutions, particularly in Asheville. It is also an opportunity to foster antiracism in ourselves and in our community.

Our program will consist of large group learning (panels, discussions, videos) and facilitated small groups. A person must be registered to participate.

Registration Pricing: The cost to register for our in-person nine-week session (22.5 hours) is based on the dates below. A participant workbook PDF will accompany the program; it will be emailed to participants just before opening night.

• Early Bird Registration: August 1-August 15: $110
• General Registration: August 16-September 15: $135

A note about fees: We know this is transformative work. If you value what we do and can afford to pay more than the basic registration price, we hope you'll consider making a donation on our website at bbavl.org, or sponsoring an Access Scholarship (see below). Together, we can increase equity in Asheville and the greater Western North Carolina region.

Each participant must register separately in advance: We ask for some information about you to help ensure that each small group has a broad range of lived experience.

Access Scholarships: We want Building Bridges sessions to be accessible to all community members. If your health and well-being are negatively impacted by societal structures, you are eligible for an Access Scholarship with Building Bridges. Our goal is that no one who experiences negative impacts as results of Structural Determinants of Health (see definition below) will be turned away from participation in our program.

“The structural determinants of health are 1) the written and unwritten rules that create, maintain, or eliminate durable and hierarchical patterns of advantage among socially constructed groups in the conditions that affect health, and 2) the manifestation of power relations in that people and groups with more power based on current social structures work—implicitly and explicitly—to maintain their advantage by reinforcing or modifying these rules.” (Heller, et al., 2024).

If you would like to be considered for an Access Scholarship, please contact [email protected].

If you would like to sponsor an Access Scholarship, please click here (bbavl.org/donate) and add the note "Access Scholarship" to your donation.

Session Workbook: Our participant workbook is 150+ pages. An email with our digital PDF workbook will be provided just before opening night. If you are not comfortable reading a PDF on your device, you may save the pdf and have it printed locally (at a place like Staples or FedEx, cost is approximately $25). If digital reading is a barrier for you and you are unable to print the manual, please contact [email protected].

COVID Precautions: Masking will be optional but we will make masks available free of charge to anyone who feels more comfortable wearing a mask. Per CDC guidelines, we ask that you stay home if you have tested positive for COVID or flu within a week of our meeting, or if you are experiencing symptoms of any respiratory illness.

If you are unable to attend the session before it begins, you are eligible for a refund. To request a refund, you can submit your request through Eventbrite.

Host or Publisher Building Bridges of Asheville