The Lake Eden Arts Festival has been a Western North Carolina cultural staple for 15 years. It’s a music, art and dance extravaganza held twice a year at Camp Rockmount in Black Mountain, and if you haven’t heard of it, you probably haven’t lived here very long. But even if you live here, you might not have heard much about the festival’s founder, Jennifer Pickering, who recently won Etown’s E-Chievement Award. A nationally broadcast radio show dedicated to educating and inspiring diverse audiences through music and conversation, Etown’s choice of winner couldn’t have been more in line with their philosophy. “Culture is most easily preserved through music and dance,” says Pickering. But while it may look utterly intentional and well-orchestrated, LEAF came about through a strange series of coincidences, she says. Pickering claims she didn’t have a long-range plan: “I just knew I wanted to create an event where people from different cultures could sample those of others.” Nominated for the award by a longtime LEAF-goer, Pickering has transformed the LEAF Festival into a busy nonprofit group with two outreach programs, LEAF Schools And Streets and LEAF International, which bring music and musicians from around the world to American, as well as Rwandan and Guatemalan children. “Schools And Streets was specifically inspired by kids living in public housing, who were starved for positive arts enrichment. This program helps to give them focus and self esteem,” she says. She’s thrilled with the group’s recent grants but knows there’s always more to do. “We have a large vision,” she says. “We maximize staff and dollars and are doing as much as we can as best we can.”   —Brent Fleury