About Our Team
Pursuit of Health and Happiness
Elderflower Care Community is a nonprofit Assisted Living Facility in Western North Carolina founded in 2023. Elderflower Care Community is home to seniors and retired residents who place a high value on their independence, friendships, healthy lifestyle, and healthcare. Our mission is to enrich the aging experience by providing opportunities for healthy and purposeful living. This benefits not just our residents, but also their families, our staff, and the greater community.
Meet the Staff
A Supportive Community
We’re a group of retirement living specialists whose mission is to provide the highest level of care and comfort to our friendly residents. Get in touch if you’d like to meet some of our staff members. We guarantee that after getting to know us, you’ll feel like you’ve already found a Assisted Living Facility for yourself or your loved ones.
Annie Spindler
Founder, Executive Director
Annie's educational background is about as diverse as the elders she hopes to serve. After obtaining an Undergraduate Art degree from the University of Wisconsin, she moved to Seattle Washington where she found a passion for natural medicine. She graduated with an Acupuncture degree from Wu Hsing Tao School in 2013. Her growing family brought her back to Chicago where she owned and operated Serenity Acupuncture, a multidisciplinary wellness clinic. A love for the Blue Ridge Mountains eventually brought Annie to Asheville to finally put down her permanent roots with her husband of 11 years and their two daughters.
A graduate certificate in Aging, Health and Society from Appalachian State University has granted Annie the education and experience to own and operate an Assisted Living facility in the state of North Carolina and she will soon become a licensed Adult Care Administrator in this state.
Dr Joanie Terrizzi
Director of Operations
Dr. Joanie Terrizzi is a grief coach, mind-body wellness practitioner, and writer. Joanie spent more than a decade as a school librarian for under-resourced populations, during which time she trained with the organization Mindful Schools. Joanie taught Mindfulness to students, teachers, and parents for more than a decade, and believes firmly in the power of communities as the vehicle to encourage well-being and enact healing. She is a 200-hr Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance and has further trained in Yin Yoga with Biff Mithoefer. Joanie is an iRest® Level 2 Teacher, is attuned to Reiki Level II, has completed Authentic Relating Training through level 3, has certificates in Clinical Hypnosis and Integrative Wellness Coaching through Saybrook University, and is an NBHWC- and ICF-certified coach. Joanie completed two trainings in yoga for children, a Death Doula certification, and she holds a master’s degree in library science; she is the past president of the Midwest End-of-Life Doula Collective and is a member of the National End-of-Life Doula Alliance. Joanie completed her dissertation research on children’s experiences using mindfulness in daily life and received her doctorate in Mind-Body Medicine from Saybrook University where she pursued her interest in healing modalities and the possibilities for human flourishing.
Joanie's grandmother, who outlived her own memory and died in Joanie's arms two weeks after her 100th birthday, taught Joanie how to see all the beauty elders hold, and how to be present and patient with all that is there, so long as the breath still breathes.
Board of Directors
Katie May
Vice President
Katie is an avid lover of connection, coffee, and creating her own magic. She loves creating safe and sacred spaces for people to reconnect with and embrace their own magic and medicine within so they can live in reverence to their own internal seasons and bloom wildly.
Katie believes in living a soul-led life, one that feels true and beautiful to each of us. She is committed to helping guide, support, and nurture people along their path as a healing facilitator and Clinical Nurse Specialist. With over 16 years of experience as a nurse in palliative and end of life care, she has learned so much about the resilience of the human spirit and also a deep desire for all of us to be seen, heard, and known. She practices in a way that honors the story of each individual and helps to illicit the deeper connection to the healing within.
Dr. Brian Asbill
Treasurer
I grew up in Columbia, SC which frankly always felt a bit like “half way to where I actually wanted to be” which was either the mountains or the beach! After graduating from Davidson College and then the Medical University of SC (MUSC), I completed my internal medicine training at the University of Virginia and cardiology fellowship at MUSC and moved to Asheville in the summer of 2001 to join Asheville Cardiology Associates as an invasive, non-interventional cardiologist.
My wife Sarah, an internal medicine doctor, and I have raised our two boys (Henry 21 and Jacob 17) here and love living in Asheville! I left Asheville Cardiology in 2020 and am now the Chief Medical Officer for a healthcare startup company out of Austin, TX called Love.Life. I believe in the power of lifestyle medicine – nutrition, physical activity, stress management, sleep, toxin avoidance and social connection – to prevent, treat and even reverse the common chronic medical conditions that currently plague us.
I watched my mom slowly lose herself and ultimately succumb to Alzheimer’s at age 76, and the vision of Elderflower community resonates with me on a very personal level. I am honored to serve on the board to help make this vision a reality and look forward to the journey ahead!
James Fleming, Attorney at Law
Secretary
James is an estate planning and elder law attorney in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where he helps families navigate the complexities of government programs like Medicaid and Veterans Administration Benefits. While in college, James worked as a weekend event planner at a local nursing home where he was motivated to become an attorney after witnessing nursing home residents struggle to navigate through their Medicaid and Medicare issues.
James and his wife, Emily, reside in Hendersonville with their two children.