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sat10AM - 8PM
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mon10AM - 6PM
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sat10AM - 7PM
sun11AM - 6PM
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What a difference a few decades make! The images of New York City were taken in 1970 (Bernard Gotfryd, Library of Congress) and in 2018 by Afif Ramdhasuma (from pexels.com). Earth Day has been celebrated on April 22 since it was established through grassroots efforts in 1970. It was a response to increasing concerns caused by smog (intense air pollution caused mainly by exhaust fumes), Great Lakes at risk of dying from pesticide runoff and waste dumping, and rivers that caught on fire (the Cuyahoga River in Ohio famously caught fire in June of 1969). It was also the year when monumental legislation was enacted to address all kinds of environmental concerns. ...read more
At Home | Inspiration
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If it’s true, as they say, that seeing is believing, then we at Mast Store would like to propose another entry to your quip collection: Doing is moving. “Doing” not only requires movement - “doing” moves you both physically and emotionally. ...read more
Local Flavor | Mast Family Favorites | Travel
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What is a library? It’s a big building with lots of books in it. But wait, it’s so much more. The library is a gateway to your wildest dreams, a place to learn, a place to imagine, a place to make friends. Today’s libraries are repositories of books, but they also are places to get help to learn to read or improve your reading, to improve your math skills, to listen to a performance by a string quartet, to watch a movie, to refine your crafting skills, and to gather with fellow writers. Yes, libraries are SO much more. ...read more
Adventure | Inspiration | Mast Family Favorites
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... Our favorite foods! Food is universal because everybody’s got ta eat! And the last two months of the year are filled with more than their fair share of family meals, work gatherings, special outings to favorite restaurants, tins filled with homemade cookies and fudge, and the anticipation of food traditions handed down from generation to generation ...read more
At Home | Recipes
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Even before we bought the Mast General Store, we were taken by the beauty of Valle Crucis. We’ve heard people describe the drive out Broadstone Road as traveling through a time portal. In the 1970s, fields in the river bottoms would be filled with tobacco, cabbage, or high with hay to feed cattle that were grazing in the summer pasture. ...read more
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The lucky few who have seen the Earth from a different perspective – astronauts - all echo the same viewpoint upon their return. Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut and the first human to go to space, commented, “Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it.”
Behind the Scenes | Inspiration
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For 19 years now, Mast Store has matched each pound of bulk candy purchased during its Be a Sweetheart event with a $1 donation to our food security partners. A dollar purchases 3, 5, 7, even 10 hearty meals for someone experiencing food insecurity. This Valentine's Day, show your love on many levels - to your sweetheart and to the local community.
What would Valentine’s Day be if we didn’t swap sweets with our sweethearts? Candy, specifically chocolate, having a romantic connection to Valentine’s Day is a relatively recent occurrence. A tradition dating much further back, however, recognizes the modern holiday we call Valentine’s Day as the Feast of Saint Valentine in remembrance of three Valentines all said to have died on February 14. Each in his own way was martyred for spreading God’s kingdom of love and example in their communities.
Love and romance, as we know them today, weren’t associated with Valentine’s Day until the 14th century when the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote of birds that come together to find their mates on St. Valentine’s Day. It’s around this same period of time in the Late Middle Ages – an era that saw courtly love come into high fashion – that the first use of “sweet” as a term of endearment enters the English language. The word “heart,” a symbol of emotion, would soon join that pet name, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Mast Store has, in a sense, combined the Valentine traditions of sweets and feasts for 19 years now.
The Be a Sweetheart campaign provides food security partners throughout Mast General Store’s region with $1 for every pound of bulk candy purchased the weekend before Valentine’s Day, February 12 – 13. With each dollar, these food security agencies can purchase as many as 10 meals for the individuals and families they serve.
The following is a list of our partnering food security agencies and the Mast Store locations that are supporting them for 2022’s Be a Sweetheart campaign: Hunger and Health Coalition (Boone and Valle Crucis stores); MANNA FoodBank (Waynesville, Hendersonville, and Asheville stores); Loaves & Fishes (Greenville); Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee (Knoxville); Harvest Hope (Columbia); Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina (Winston-Salem); and Feeding Southwest Virginia (Roanoke).
In addition to providing meals, our food bank partners help their clients learn how to be smart shoppers and put together healthy menus on a budget. Some even offer clients a hand-up with opportunities to find work in the foodservice industry.
At such an important time of year to make sure everyone has warm meals on their tables, you can also help our partners meet their clients’ food needs by rounding your purchases up to the next dollar at all Mast Store locations from February 7 until Valentine's Day, February 14.
These donations of pocket change add up to help each agency achieve its goals of feeding our neighbors and making our communities safer and happier places for all.
Whether you’re rounding up your transaction or purchasing a pound of candy, nothing is sweeter than contributing to your neighbors’ wellbeing, and we hope that the Mast Store’s Be a Sweetheart event fills both your table and your heart on this Feast of Saint Valentine!
Check out last year's blog for more information about chocolate and Valentine's Day.