Music with a Mission: Bear Shadow Joins Forces with Stage4Hope

Music with a Mission: Bear Shadow Joins Forces with Stage4Hope

Just two weeks from now, music and mission will cross paths at Bear Shadow Music Festival set to take place May 29-31 at Ferngrove just outside the picturesque town of Highlands, NC. The bucolic 85-acre property will not only serve as the beloved boutique festival’s new home but also as the permanent site for Stage4Hope, a nonprofit dedicated to helping cancer patients navigate a myriad of challenges, particularly mental health, connecting with expert care and expense help related to traveling for treatment.

This year’s Bear Shadow, which features an eclectic mix of stars from the worlds of country, Americana, funk, and soul including Charlie Crockett, Margo Price, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Mavis Staples, and more, marks the start of an ongoing partnership between festival producers Eleven Events and Highlands Festivals, Inc. and Stage4Hope.

Owned by Stage4Hope founder Stacy Carter, Ferngrove is currently being developed as the future home of the Stage4Hope Retreat and Wellness Center including a chapel, event space and cottages designed to house patients and their families. Construction is already underway on an administrative building as well as roads and utilities, which will be temporarily halted in order to stage the property for Bear Shadow.

Until recently, Stage4Hope and the project at Ferngrove was almost entirely underwritten by Carter demonstrating the personal nature of her commitment to the nonprofit’s mission. A cancer survivor herself, Carter was diagnosed in 2023 with lung cancer at a time in her life when she should have been enjoying the fruits of her success as an entrepreneur, innovator, and mother.

The devastating news came not long after selling Carter & Clark, a land surveying company based in Atlanta that she spent more than three decades building into the largest corporation of its type in U.S. A routine physical exam resulted in a cancer diagnosis and the struggles that followed.

“I was at Mayo Clinic,” Carter recounted about that fateful day. “They had done my executive physical every year. But this time, they said, ‘You’re in the best shape you’ve ever been in.’

“So I was about to leave, and I put a book bag on my shoulder and I remembered that I had a rotator cuff tear. And I thought, ‘Can you look at that while I’m here?’ So they took an X-ray, and they got a shadow in my lungs. And then that went within 24 hours [from you’re healthy] to you have three months to live. You have cancer in your lungs, your lymph nodes, your bones, right hip, right shoulder, left hip, and the brain.”

Shortly after her diagnosis, Carter began targeted therapy and experienced a rapid and positive response. Now enrolled in a clinical trial for NVL-520 (Zidesamtinib), she continues to do remarkably well.

But her journey from cancer patient to survivor made her acutely aware of the overwhelming gaps in care including delays getting treatment, insurance hurdles, and lack of healing and emotional support. Determined to help others facing these challenges, she founded Stage4Hope to deliver real options, faster pathways to care, financial assistance, emotional support and a place of healing for those facing late-stage diagnoses. Ferngrove, a property she had purchased as a home and retreat for herself and her extended family, would become that place.

Having just recently relocated from Atlanta to her newly completed home on the property, making the the decision to invite strangers into her sanctuary was born of gratitude and an unshakeable faith in a higher purpose. “I feel like I’m just a miracle,” she said. “But on top of that, all I wanted to do was to help other people. I just thought to myself, it’s such a battle. How in the world do other people do that?

I’m a fighter, but not everybody is. How do people get through this? They don’t. They just sit down and die. So I thought I’ve got to put something out there for the things that other people don’t have.”

Moving Carter’s dream forward required creative ways to fund Stage4Hope beyond her personal financial commitment and outside donations. Enter Bear Shadow and a serendipitous convergence of mutual aspirations. A casual conversation back in 2025 between Carter and Highlands Festival, Inc. board member David Bock opened the door to the collaboration between the two nonprofits. Highlands Festival Inc., a 501(c)3 dedicated to promoting The Highlands/Cashiers Plateau, also produces Bear Shadow’s popular sister event The Highlands Food & Wine Festival, which is on hiatus this year after a 10-year-run.

“I always did the Highlands Food & Wine Festival but never Bear Shadow,” recalled Carter. “David Bock mentioned to me that they had lost their place and were looking for a new place. I commented that I would be willing to consider Ferngrove, but it was conditional on it bringing attention to Stage4Hope.

Then I met with Eleven Events and we started talking. It was my thought that if we could do a benefit concert that would bring attention to such an important need, then this would work for me and would work for them.”

Together, festival organizers and Carter reimagined Ferngrove as the permanent home for Bear Shadow allowing for access, traffic flow, grading and the additional infrastructure that would support future events and an ongoing partnership spotlighting Stage4Hope’s mission along with broadening the festival’s charitable giving. Since 2021, Bear Shadow has raised over $100,000 for local charities including Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust, Sky Valley-Scaly Mountain Volunteer Fire & Rescue and Highlands Biological Station.

Carter also envisions using the Stage4Hope Wellness and Retreat Center, and possibly her home, for smaller fundraisers including allowing local nonprofits to use the space for charity events. Carter will take her first shot at it when she helps kick off Bear Shadow on Friday, May 29 with a special invitation-only gathering at her Ferngrove home created to personally connect donors to Stage4Hope’s mission.

The intimate function will be followed by a special Stage4Hope event set to take place on the festival grounds featuring country crooner Colton Bolwin and bluegrass stars The Infamous Stringdusters. All proceeds will go toward funding patient travel. The event is included for VIP Weekender passes with a limited number of individual tickets available.

Eleven Events founder and partner Casey Reid credits Carter with breathing new life into Bear Shadow. ”Stacy Carter was instrumental in the return of Bear Shadow providing Ferngrove and future site of Stage4Hope as our venue,” she said. “We are honored to partner and promote the incredible work that Stage4Hope is doing to help those on their cancer journey.”

For her part, Carter is grateful to be able to give back to a community that has embraced her as one of its own. “Highlands has been such a welcoming community. It’s just been so encouraging and supportive. I wanted to give back to the community. Having this space in order to offer it is an opportunity. I’m excited.”

Tickets for the festival, including VIP options are available via Bear Shadow’s website. For more information about Stage4Hope and how to donate, click here.