Blog

We’ve seen the devastation of the earthquake in Haiti, and it’s hard to just sit back and continue to watch the heartbreaking news.  The time is now for us to help aid the victims of this terrible tragedy. 

If any citizen of North Carolina is seeking information on family members in Haiti please contact the State Department at 1-888-407-4747. 

Here’s how North Carolinians can help aid the victims of natural disasters, including assisting American efforts in Haiti:

Donate Cash

Cash is the most helpful donation. It allows professional, credible relief organizations to buy exactly what is needed most to help disaster victims. Cash donations minimize delays in collecting, packing, shipping and distributing goods and there is no added transportation cost.

Three ways to donate cash:
1)    Contribute to the voluntary organization of your choice.
2)    Contribute to one of the major non-profit organizations that are accepting cash donations to respond to this emergency, see http://www.interaction.org/crisis-list/earthquake-haiti.
3)    Donate $10 to the Red Cross by simply texting "HAITI" to "90999." The donation will automatically be charged to your cell phone bill.

Donate Goods

Donated goods are discouraged at this point due to limited resources for transporting, distributing and receiving such supplies.

Volunteer

Many non-profit organizations and faith-based groups respond to disasters and offer a wide range of services. However, volunteers without prior disaster relief experience are generally not selected for relief assignments. To learn more about the training involved and volunteering in future disasters with one of these organizations, visit:

•    www.helpindisaster.org
•    www.nvoad.org
•    www.serve.gov
•    www.citizencorps.gov
•    www.networkforgood.org

For more information please visit the Center for International Disaster Information at http://www.cidi.org/incident/haiti-10a or call 703-276-1914.

It was a chilly morning in Fayetteville on Friday when I joined a host of volunteers to kick off the building of a home for a soldier who was severely injured in Iraq. This “Build Brigade” and the entire project was organized by Homes for Our Troops a national non-profit group that has now completed 48 homes – all through the generous support of sponsors, donors, and volunteers.

The house in Fayetteville will be home to SSG Maurice Craft and his two young daughters. In 2003, Craft lost both his legs when an IED exploded nearby. His new home was designed to be fully accessible and will provide a comfortable and safe home for this brave young man.

By the end of the day, plans were to get the walls up, doors and windows installed and even shingles on the roof! The team swarming the site included other vets, a professional crew from Greensboro, a contingent of soldiers from the 82nd Airborne, and the father of another injured North Carolina serviceman who had received a house through the program. While the air was indeed cold, it was the warm feelings we all had about working on such a worthy project that I’ll most remember.

Governor Beverly Perdue reported in her Thanksgiving greeting that on Monday she helped deliver the four millionth meal for the Winston-Salem Meals-on-Wheels program of Senior Services, Inc.  She noted that after she delivered the meal, the recipient—Ms. Nancy Hooper (83 years of age)—remarked how thankful she was for the volunteers who visit.

In helping Senior Services celebrate this important service milestone, Governor Perdue recognized several significant local contributors.  First, she honored Mr. Bill Magness, who lost his wife in a senseless incident more than a year and a half ago, when they walked in on a robbery in progress as they were attempting to deliver a meal.  Both the meal recipient and Anne Magness were killed, and Mr. Magness was seriously injured.  Today Mr. Magness is back delivering on that same meals route—at the age of 80.  Richard Gottlieb, President and CEO of Senior Services, asks that we imagine the “courage, grace and spirit” of Mr. Magness’ service.

Governor Perdue then recognized Vic and Roddy Flow for their leadership in eliminating the waiting list for home-delivered meals in Forsyth County.  Thousands are on the wait list for this service statewide but not in Forsyth because of the vision and dedication of such local donors and leaders.  Individuals, the faith community, and foundations fund about half of the meals each year, while federal, state, and local governments provide the other half.

Governor Perdue also thanked two of the original volunteers who helped start the Meals-on-Wheels program in Winston-Salem in 1962—Hellen Prichard and Juanita Gordon.  Forsyth’s program is the oldest home-delivered meals program in the Southeast and the third oldest in the nation.  Currently, more than 1,200 homebound elderly receive assistance through the efforts of more than 1,425 volunteers staffing 66 hot meal routes and 21 frozen meal routes in Forsyth’s Meals-on-Wheels program. 

Home-delivered meals can make the difference in allowing seniors unable to obtain or prepare meals for themselves to remain in the community.  Under the state’s Home and Community Care Block Grant this past year, nearly 17,300 frail seniors received nearly 2.7 million meals.  In the words of a Forsyth meal recipient, “I feel like it helps me to help myself.  It helps keep me at home longer and out of a nursing home.  It helps my daughter to know I have a meal each day while she has to do her job.  It helps me to know there are still people who care enough to do this.”

For more information about home-delivered meals, you can check out the web site of the Division of Aging and Adult Services at http://www.ncdhhs.gov/aging/meals.htm, or contact your Area Agency on Aging, http://www.ncdhhs.gov/aging/aaa.htm.     

Yesterday morning, the Governor visited the Raleigh Rescue Mission (RRM), and Executive Director Lynn Daniell gave the Governor a tour of the day-to-day operations of the Mission’s good work.  With Thanksgiving just a few days away, it was a humbling experience to hear the stories of the men, women and children who talked about how grateful they are to have shelter and food.

The Governor spoke to two women who are making great strides to overcome addiction.  One woman told of her one-year progress and shed a few tears of happiness.  Another woman asked the Governor for prayer and thoughts because she was approaching her third month of recovery.  She discussed the difficulties she faces every day, but she also was optimistic that she could beat the addiction and turn her life around.  Both women were grateful to have another chance at RRM.

The Governor visited the children’s development center and listened to the pre-schoolers of homeless mothers talk about what they were thankful for—one child was thankful for a brother and others were thankful for their mothers.  While the Governor listened to the children talk about their blessings and watched them make turkey hats, she saw hope in the eyes of the children and listened to their infectious laughter as they talked about Thanksgiving.

The Governor stopped to listen to every person she met along the tour of the facilities.  She heard their story and learned about their lives, both past and present.  She met a young lady with four children who is determined to complete nursing classes, and working with staff at RRM, it is obvious she will complete her classes and be gainfully employed.  She and the Governor talked about the example she is setting and how it encourages her older children to learn and study.

Then, we were outside where we met a gentleman from Bunn delivering a pickup truck load of collards and turnips.  He said he makes deliveries from his farm weekly to the RRM and that he enjoys giving back to the community and providing food to those in need.  The Governor called him an angel—she called many of the volunteers at the RRM angels.  And we met the guys cooking turkeys to serve on Thanksgiving—must have been 10 turkeys on each large cooker.

The RRM helps more than 6,000 homeless and near-homeless individuals per year (men, women and moms with children) and has a residential capacity per night of about 100 individuals.  About 62 percent of those served at RRM are women and children.  RRM depends very heavily on donations of food, clothing, miscellaneous supplies, medical supplies, etc., and of course, volunteers are needed to supplement the work of a great staff.

www.serve.gov

www.volunteernc.org

NCDPI employees have brought in many donations during the past two weeks for the C2C school supply drive we conducted for President Obama’s and Governor Perdue’s “United We Serve” campaign. I would like to thank them for their generosity to this worthy cause.

It is not every day that I get to walk down the street carrying a 3-foot long red plastic crayon.  But once I heard about the “Crayons2Calculators-Durham Teachers Warehouse Corp.,” I knew it would be the perfect place to take my larger-than-life-sized crayon bank on a field trip. And I was right.

“Crayons2Calculators,” or C2C, is a nonprofit organization based in Durham County that collects new or gently-used school supplies and then holds special events in a donated warehouse space and invites local teachers to come "shop for free" for the supplies they need. The group was founded and for the most part, is staffed, by college student volunteers from Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill.  It takes a special organization to bring students from these rival schools together and that is exactly what C2C is. These students, along with their executive director, Jenna Boitano, and some board members, have recognized a need in their community and are working to make sure all classrooms teachers have the tools they need to help students succeed.

I visited the C2C warehouse on the final of three “shopping” days held for teachers from Merrick-Moore, Glenn, Holt, Y.E. Smith and C.C. Spaulding elementary schools.  The shelves were depleted but teachers still managed to fill their baskets, boxes and carts with “100” points worth of free supplies. Desk organizers were 1 point, as were 10 pens and packs of notebook paper.  I met a teacher who was loading up on glue sticks (the kind that tasted horrible so students were less tempted to snack on their art projects). Others selected hand-held hole punchers and poster board. One teacher admitted she had spent close to $1,000 of her own money on supplies for her classroom last year. She said her visit to the C2C warehouse would help her to get the supplies her students needed without worrying how to pay her own bills for the month.

NCDPI employees have been bringing in donations for C2C for the past two weeks and I would like to thank them for their generosity to this worthy cause. It took a few volunteers and numerous trips to the car to get our first load of hundreds of dollars worth of donations into the warehouse. And as I promised the C2C volunteers, next time I bring my big red crayon to the warehouse, it will be filled with pounds of spare change they can use to re-stock their shelves with more crayons, calculators and anything our teachers need to support our students so they can learn and succeed.

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of visiting the Communities in Schools (CIS) of Wake County’s Capitol Park Learning Center in downtown Raleigh. Before my visit, I knew that CIS Learning Centers meet a critical community need by providing after-school tutoring and mentoring to hundreds of local students.  After touring the Capitol Park facility and talking with staff, I was even more impressed by the real and significant differences this small team of dedicated people make every day in the lives of the students they serve.

Recently, I was able to tour another great CIS of Wake County facility and gain first-hand experience with the after-school program at the Heritage Park Learning Center. As soon as I arrived, I was greeted by an eager group of bright and enthusiastic students. I also helped Heritage Park staff kick off their new “Ready to Read” literacy program during my visit. As a part of this program, staff conduct after-school lessons for kindergartners and first graders to help them improve language skills including letter and sound recognition, reading, writing and spelling. The goal of the program is to get students reading at or above grade level by the end of the school year. But Heritage Park is not just about tutoring. As I read and talked with these students, I was reminded how important it is that every child and teen has a place to go outside of school where they feel encouraged and supported. The Heritage Park Learning Center is clearly one of those places.
 
In larger schools systems like Wake County’s, an ever-increasing number of students can lead to larger schools and full classrooms. While they accomplish much, our teachers and school leaders cannot do everything on their own. That is why the State Board of Education and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction recognize that Communities in Schools of Wake County is one of many key partners in our efforts to make sure every student reaches his or her full potential. The encouragement and motivation CIS of Wake County staff members provide to young people is critical to their future success. Many of these students have never considered college before, but CIS staff members and volunteers help to show them that a college degree can be within their reach. 

While we cannot assign a value to this type of service, CIS tutors and mentors can and should take pride in the many futures they make brighter. Now I am even more excited about continuing to visit these learning centers throughout the rest of the school year. And I look forward to seeing more inspiring stories as a result of the work being done by Communities in Schools of Wake County.

As part of the “United We Serve” campaign, I had the opportunity on Thursday to volunteer alongside a team of enthusiastic AmeriCorps volunteers and staff in our Division of Parks and Recreation.

We were assigned to remove a nonnative, invasive plant called the Autumn olive from a wooded area at the Robeson Creek canoe access in the Jordan Lake Recreation Area between Raleigh and Pittsboro.

Not long after I arrived, Emily Hill, the division’s Piedmont biologist, handed me a lopper and a handsaw and explained that the Autumn olive was introduced as an ornamental plant from Asia to provide food for wildlife, but that it now threatens the forest’s biodiversity as it outcompetes other native plants for food and sunlight.

I didn’t have to look for the large plant, which has a large number of elliptical-shaped leaves and a back side with a silvery white shine. Autumn olive is so dense along the gravel access road it obscures many of the young hardwoods and other species.

We got right to work and it didn’t take long for any of us to break a sweat. I was extremely impressed by the hard work of everyone involved, especially the volunteers with AmeriCorps. There was Veronika Lopez, 20, from California, Jeannie Lee, 23, from down the road in Goldsboro, Ned Scavuzzo-Duggan, 19, from Rhode Island, Jared Brown, 25, from Michigan and the team’s leader Joareyn Hill, 21, from Wisconsin.

I learned from chatting with the team members from AmeriCorps that they were “roughing” it, camping every night at the recreation area. Prior to arriving at Jordan Lake, they spent time rebuilding Louisiana communities destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and rebuilding a battered women’s shelter damaged by fire in western North Carolina. All were spending a year volunteering as a way to travel and do their part for public service. After finishing their work at Jordan Lake State Recreation Area this week, they will head for more volunteer work at Morrow Mountain State Park in Albemarle and then to Pilot Mountain State Park near Mt. Airy.

I am genuinely inspired by their devotion to public service.