🗞️ One woman sent 955 local kids back to school with new shoes, supplies and love

🗞️ A new HVAC supply store just opened in Kernersville

🗞️ How our local hospitals landed in the new US News rankings

🗞️ Why so many neighbors missed the boil-water alert, and what changes next

🌧️ Wet and cloudy | High: 82°F | Low: 70°F

A soggy midweek. Expect a cloudy day with periods of rain and a few rumbles of thunder, so the umbrella earns its keep. All that cloud cover keeps highs a touch lower, around 82, with a muggy low near 70. Give yourself extra time on the roads.

If you want proof that one person can move a whole community, meet Porsche Jones.

On Saturday, Jones ran her fourth annual BOND Love Day back-to-school event at Saint Peter's World Outreach Center, and it was a happy blur. A remarkable 955 kids and their families registered, and each child walked away with a backpack full of school supplies, a fresh pair of shoes and new clothes. There were games and a foam pit, and Novant Health offered free health screenings and vaccinations on site. What started four years ago as a plan for 100 kids and drew about 300 has grown into one of the area's biggest back-to-school giveaways.

Jones, 42, is a Community Health Services manager at Novant Health, a Carver High and Wake Forest grad, and a former standout point guard whose jersey hangs retired at her old school. She runs BOND, short for Building on New Development, as a series of youth basketball events and this signature giveaway. Notably, she does it without a corporate sponsor, on purpose, leaning on donations from friends, family and partners like St. Peter's and Big Brothers Big Sisters so the vision stays hers.

"Sometimes people don't have the resources and the access that they need," Jones said. "This is an opportunity for me to give that love and make sure these kids get to start their school year in a positive way." It is exactly the kind of quiet, powerful generosity that makes this area feel like home.

Read more

Handy news if you work in the trades, or just know how hard it can be to get parts fast.

Winsupply, a national HVAC supply chain, has opened a new Kernersville location at 1175-A South Park Drive, a 10,000-square-foot store stocked with heating and cooling parts and equipment. The local franchise is led by president Chris Jones with a small team, and Jones said they chose Kernersville specifically because of all the construction and new subdivisions going up around the Triad.

For contractors and repair techs in our area, a nearby supply house can mean the difference between finishing a job today and waiting on a part. The company already runs a Winston-Salem location under its Noland brand on North Liberty Street, so the Kernersville store fills in the map a little closer to home.

Winsupply is a big operation, more than 600 franchise locations nationwide, but the model leans local, with each store run by owner-operators who live and work in the community they serve. A welcome addition as our corner of the Triad keeps growing.

Learn more

U.S. News & World Report just released its 2026-27 Best Hospitals rankings, and here is how the places most of us actually use stacked up.

The Triad's three main hospitals, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, Novant's Forsyth Medical Center and Cone's Moses Cone, all landed in the middle-to-lower part of the North Carolina list, and none cracked a national top-50 specialty ranking. Duke topped the state. Among the local three, Moses Cone ranked highest in N.C., moving up to fifth and earning a high-performing mark in rehabilitation. Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist slipped to a tie for 13th, and Forsyth Medical Center came in tied for 17th.

The more useful numbers for a family choosing where to go may be the procedure ratings. Forsyth Medical Center was rated high performing in 10 of 24 procedures and conditions, including maternity, hip and knee replacement, and pneumonia. Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist scored high performing in nine, including diabetes, heart bypass surgery and ENT care. A separate Leapfrog safety report this spring gave all three local hospitals a "B" grade.

As always, rankings only tell part of the story, and hospitals tend to tout whichever list flatters them most. "Because most patients choose providers close to home," said U.S. News health chief Ben Harder, the new regional specialty ratings are meant to help you weigh your local options with your own doctor. You can look up any hospital's full report card on the U.S. News site.

See the rankings

Last week's water main break came with a frustrating twist: a lot of people who were supposed to boil their water never realized it.

Because the advisory covered roughly half the county but many homes never actually lost water pressure, plenty of customers assumed it did not apply to them. It did not help that early messages told people to boil water "when water service is restored," which sounded like it was meant only for those who lost service. One Ardmore resident said he and his wife drank their tap water for two days before stumbling onto the advisory on the city's website. "Why the hell did the city not notify their customers in the affected areas with an email or text?" he asked.

An N.C. State crisis-communications expert, Alice Chang, said the confusion was understandable and avoidable. "In emergency communication, ambiguity creates its own risk," she said, adding that a clear message should have told everyone in the advisory area to boil their water regardless of whether their service was interrupted. Her bottom line: "Releasing information is not the same as reaching the people who need it." The utility says it did use every channel available, from news conferences to social media to its websites and the CityLink line.

Here is the part that matters going forward. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Utilities says it will soon offer customers the option to get alerts by text or email during future emergencies. When that sign-up opens, it is worth a two-minute setup so the next time, the message reaches you directly.

Read more