Jessie Dean's Asheville Tea Company in North Carolina was destroyed when Hurricane Helene swept away its building near the Swannanoa River in September 2024. Rather than shutting down, the business survived thanks to a promise made months earlier between Dean and Alexandra Sangster, owner of Sarjesa tea company in Calgary, Canada, who agreed to produce Asheville Tea Company's products at her factory more than 2,300 miles away. The arrangement highlights how personal relationships and cross-border support networks can prove crucial to small business recovery after disasters, particularly when insurance and government aid fall short.

Within a month of the hurricane, Sarjesa's Calgary factory was blending, processing and packaging all of Asheville Tea Company's tea in time for the Christmas rush, and continued doing so for nearly two years despite tariffs and economic uncertainty. Dean, who founded the company with her sister in 2016, lost all inventory and equipment; because the building was leased, insurance did not cover the flood damage, and the firm received no federal relief funds, though community donations and grants covered roughly half the losses. This autumn, Dean will open a new facility in Asheville, bringing manufacturing back home, while researchers say such durable "bridging" relationships between geographically distant business owners remain rare but valuable for disaster resilience.