CMMF Musician Spotlight: Rhonda Gouge

Rhonda Gouge is an old-time, gospel, and bluegrass musician from Mitchell County, an area hit hard during Hurricane Helene. Her decades of teaching, leading music in worship services, and honing her craft as a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist were honored with a North Carolina Heritage Fellowship in 2023. Like many artists affected by Helene, Rhonda struggled to access essential medical care, experienced income loss, and, especially, mourned the devastation of the place she is most deeply rooted in the days, weeks, and months following September 27, 2024.

During a February interview with our Artist Outreach Coordinator Olivia Phillips, Rhonda said, “I wish that I could wave a wand and…things could somehow be normal. And that the trees would somehow be cleaned up, and the trash. And that people could get back to their normal routines. And I wish I could wave a wand and take all the hurt away.”

So when she and bandmates Sam McKinney and Kathy Kuhne of Rhonda Gouge and Keeping Time were awarded performance grants from Music Maker Foundation’s Carolina Music Makers Fund (CMMF), they knew immediately that they wanted their performance to be a fundraiser for storm recovery in their community. The band held a benefit concert at Spruce Pine United Methodist Church on April 26th and raised around $2,500 for the United Methodist Committee on Relief, an organization whose work locally they have admired. UMCOR will use the funds to purchase supplies for recovery efforts in Avery, Mitchell, and Yancey Counties.