Category: Healing

Chattanooga, Chattanooga outreach, community, Daily Life, Diversity, Environment, Healing, LGBTQ+, outdoors, Rockclimbing

Finding Footing

Written by CJ Copeland

Liz, Morgan, Iris, and Austin prepare for a route at Wauhatchie Woodlands. The four are a part of the Queer Climbing Club in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and meet to climb as a group. Monday, April 13, 2026 (Photo by Cj Copeland)

Chalk dust drifts through the air as climbers gather around a cluster of boulders, spotting each other and mapping out routes on rough stone. Laughter cuts through the quiet of the outdoors, mixing with the sounds of shoes scraping rock and people calling out encouragement from below. For some, it’s just a day of climbing. For others, it’s something more: a space where they can exist as themselves.

Morgan started climbing in college after moving to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Drawn in by the physical challenge and problem-solving, they quickly found a love for the sport. “I felt pretty closed off in the climbing community when I first got here, just because I didn’t know anybody,” they say. “Sometimes it can be hard to sort of break into it.”

That feeling isn’t uncommon. Climbing communities, especially outdoor ones, often rely on word-of-mouth, and shared experience. For someone new, not just to climbing, but to the area, it can feel like everyone else already knows where they belong.

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Chattanooga, community, Daily Life, Family, Healing, Health, Nurses, women

A Heart of Steel

Written by Zoie Denton

On June 1st, 2019, Rhonda Gilliland died during a heart cath procedure. She was shocked back to life and later received a heart transplant. She speaks on the importance of faith and family through the recovery process and what a second chance at life means to her.

Before everything changed, Rhonda Gilliland was simply a daughter saying goodbye to her father. Within hours of his passing, she faced her own life-threatening crisis, entering what she describes as a peaceful place between worlds before returning to a long, painful recovery.  A life-saving heart transplant ultimately reshaped how she understands time, loss, and what it truly means to live.

On June 1, 2019, Gilliland sat beside her father as his life quietly slipped away. The room, heavy suspended between breaths and memories. Machines hummed softly in the background, but Gilliland barely noticed them. Her focus was on her dad, the man who had always been her anchor. She held onto each moment, unwilling to let go.

Then, without warning, everything changed. Gilliland’s chest started to physically hurt.

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Animals, Chattanooga, Entertainment, Family, Healing, Health, outdoors, Photography, Sports, UTC

Chattanooga’s Dock Diving Dogs

Written by Clara Paulson

Angie Young tracks the flight of her 1-year-old German Shepherd, Epic, as she jumps for her floating bumper. Epic is a beginner at dock diving. Monday April 6, 2026 (Photo by Hannah Godel)

The words “let’s go swimming!” barely escape Angie Young’s lips before her dog bursts across the backyard dock, eyes transfixed on the red toy she just tossed toward the pool. The four-legged athlete soars over the edge, never losing sight of the prize, even as gravity takes hold, sending him back to earth with a refreshing splash.

What resembles an exciting game of fetch is actually deliberate training for an upcoming dock diving competition at Southern Kingdom Diving Dogs. This backyard setup in the suburbs of Soddy Daisy is one of only two training grounds in the state of Tennessee that aims to transform pets into high-flying competitors. 

Angie Young, the owner of Southern Kingdom Diving Dogs, trains local pets how to dock dive and hosts dock diving competitions. Young speaks on all her backyard business has to offer, what dog dock diving is, and how to get started.

Angie Young, the business owner, just finished cleaning the pool and is preparing to begin swimming and dock diving lessons throughout April, in which she’ll instruct local dogs to take a leap of faith and jump as far as they can across a pool.

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Animals, Chattanooga, Chattanooga outreach, community, Environment, Farm Life, farming, Healing, Health, outdoors, Photography, UTC

Critter Clinic

Written by Delaney Holman

Jerry Harvey kisses Bonnie the raccoon. Bonnie was a retired education animal. Thursday, March 26, 2026 (Photo by Corbin Winters).

From a sleepy neighborhood street in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Opie Acres appears as an 800-square-foot home with a small shed jutting out of the woods. However, behind the privacy fences and the flourishing green backyards, a bustling rehabilitation farm filled with raccoons, opossums, squirrels, and even skunks can be found. 

Opie Acres, a nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation farm, is bursting at the seams with more animals than a team of two full-time caretakers and volunteers can handle. The farm provides life-saving medical care to ill, injured, and orphaned Virginia Opossums and other wildlife. Even providing a sanctuary home for animals who can no longer live on their own to spend their last days in the peace and caring arms of Opie Acres. 

Isabella Thomson, a volunteer at Opie Acres, speaks about the Wildlife and Opossum Rehabilitation nonprofit and the role volunteers play in rescuing orphaned wildlife. Their organization serves as a safe space for injured animals that are often ignored and seen as pests. They provide medical care and educational resources for the Chattanooga, Tennessee, community, so the animals are not seen as a nuisance but rather as extraordinary animals.

Jerry Harvey, the President and Chief Rehabilitator at Opie Acres, has woven together careers as a veterinary technician, paramedic, comedian, and hairdresser throughout his life, yet the one through line has been his love for animal rehabilitation. “Dealing with people and dealing with different situations of all kinds made a really great wildlife rehabilitator, in my opinion,” said Harvey.

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Chattanooga, Chattanooga outreach, community, Healing, Love, Philanthropy, Uncategorized

A Fresh Start

By Moses Malone

Sylvie Lawrence, a ShowerUp Volunteer, speaks about how the non-profit organization ShowerUp serves those that are unhoused or anyone that is in need of a helping hand. They provide mobile showers, hygiene kits, laundry, and personal care items. Their main goal is to spread hope and love to the community of Chattanooga Tennessee.

On a beautiful, chilly morning, amid the city sounds of traffic and train rumbles, laughter and cries of joy fill the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee. These cheerful groups stand outside a mobile trailer that promises a hot, steamy shower for the unhoused and those who need a helping hand. On the side of the trailer, the word “ShowerUp” reads: a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing hope, love, and compassion to the Chattanooga community.

“ShowerUp, in my own words, is this non-profit that is there for other people…we want to evaluate the dignity that they [the unhoused] already have and let them know what they’re really worth,” said John Justin Lin, a ShowerUp Operational Manager.

ShowerUp’s journey began 10 years ago, when Paul and Rhonda Schmitz handed out sandwiches to the unhoused. They built relationships with people on the streets and realized that they could do more than provide meals. The couple asked themselves: What do people need most? The answer to that wasn’t money, food, or clothes; it was a regular shower. Since then, a mobile community built on compassion has expanded from Nashville, TN, to Chattanooga in June 2023.

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art, Chattanooga, Chattanooga outreach, community, Farm Life, farming, Healing, horse, Malcolm Key Audio, Music, Sports, Uncategorized, UTC

Rising Rock Radio Showcase 2025
Graphic by Kylee Boone

Rising Rock is excited to showcase some of our best audio stories from this past semester in a continued partnership with Scenic Roots.

Check out the individual audio stories here or listen to the entire showcase on WUTC

Continue reading “Rising Rock Radio Showcase 2025” →
Chattanooga, community, Daily Life, Diversity, Family, Healing, Health, Karate, Sports

The Seated Champion

Written by Zoie Denton

Joel Westbrook talks about his journey as a wheelchair athlete in martial arts and how his spina bifida doesn’t limit him. He is the first wheelchair athlete to join the U.S. Para-Karate National Team and became an inspiration for those with physical limitations to challenge themselves, so they can take the first steps towards greatness.

Greatness wears many faces. For 18-year-old martial artist Joel Westbrook, greatness is carved into every determined push of his wheels. As the first ever male wheelchair athlete selected for the U.S. Para-Karate National Team, he has become a living symbol that limitations don’t define a person. His journey is proof that true strength is not bound by the body, but by the fire that drives it forward.

Joel Westbrook releases a sharp kiai, a forceful, exclamatory shout in karate. This practice supposedly connected the mind and body, as he executed the final move in his kata. Tuesday, November 11, 2025. (Photo by Angelina Fraga.)

Westbrook was born with spina bifida, a condition that affects how the spine and nerves develop. He can walk short distances using braces and crutches, but his wheelchair is where he feels strongest and most comfortable. Despite the challenges he faces, he has never felt limited.

When Westbrook was around eight years old, he saw a television show with a character performing martial arts in a wheelchair. For most viewers, it was simply a character, but for Westbrook, he saw himself represented in a sport that had always seemed inaccessible. Under the guidance of his physical therapist, Westbrook and his family discovered Green’s Karate in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a dojo known for adapting karate for all students.

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art, Chattanooga, community, Diversity, Healing, Prison, Uncategorized

Barber’s Redemption

Written by Angelina Fraga

Bryan Slayton removes the barber cape after giving Malik a fresh cut. Malik was excited to look nice for his approaching birthday. Wednesday, April 9, 2025. photo by Angelina Fraga.

There’s no striped pole or hydraulic kick leather chair. No sign posted on a door pertaining to hours of operation or holidays off. It’s just Bryan Slayton and his barber tools laid out on his mobile cart, plugged into the city’s power outlet. Slayton’s “clients” sit on a chair pulled from a park table.  On a good day, you can see people lined up waiting for a new do, sometimes not so many. Regardless, he stays from 8 am until noon, waiting to make someone’s day.

Slayton is a Chattanooga barber making a difference for those less fortunate in the community. You can find Slayton at Miller Park every Wednesday with his clippers and barber tools set up at his side.  He gives haircuts to anyone in need, they just walk up to his improvised office and ask. 

Slayon grew up in Chattanooga’s West Side projects and got his first pair of second-hand clippers for Christmas from his uncle when he was just ten years old. He mastered his craft through trial and error, but in the beginning it was only a side hustle.

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Chattanooga, Chattanooga outreach, community, Daily Life, donate, Environment, Family, Food, Food Banks, Healing, Health, outdoors, Philanthropy, Sustainability

Table for All

Written by Alexis Carpenter

Katy Neusner steps in to help pack Sack Packs for children who may not have food at home to help sustain them through the weekend. Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Photo by Alexis Carpenter.

The warehouse lights flicker on as volunteers walk through the door and make their way to rows of stacked pallets and assembly lines. The scent of produce and cardboard boxes mingle in the humid atmosphere, and the sound of pop music fills the large warehouse. Volunteers begin to sort canned goods, bag fresh vegetables, and prepare boxes for distribution.

Yet, beneath this effort lies a growing crisis. The Chattanooga Area Food Bank, a lifeline for residents across 20 counties in Tennessee and Georgia, is dealing with significant funding cuts. A nationwide halt of $500 million in federal food aid, including the suspension of USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation funding, has resulted in the cancellation of multiple truckloads of food. These shipments are now absent from the food bank’s inventory, leaving bare shelves within the warehouse.

In the midst of the working warehouse is Katy Neusner, the Advocacy and Communications Coordinator of the Chattanooga Area Food Bank. As the organization works to bridge the gap left by the funding cuts, Neusner and her colleagues face a task of sustaining their mission amid dwindling resources.​

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Animals, art, Chattanooga, Chattanooga Audubon Society, Chattanooga outreach, community, Daily Life, Dance, donate, Entertainment, Environment, Healing, Health, History, Immigration, K-Pop, Love, Music, outdoors, Philanthropy, Safety, Spelunking, Sports, Sustainability, teachers, UTC, women

Rising Rock Radio Showcase
Graphic by Kylee Boone

Rising Rock is excited to showcase some of our best audio stories from this past semester in a continued partnership with Scenic Roots.

Continue reading “Rising Rock Radio Showcase” →