Blog

October is National Crime Prevention Month.  Check out how one CIS staffer is helping guide the lives of youth already involved in the criminal justice system.

What is the true definition of insanity? Some say it’s the outcome of one’s pre-determined manifest destiny. Others say it’s knowing a negative result will occur and despite our better judgment, we decide to travel that path because we can. One writer suggests that insanity is the fisherman that continues to go fishing at the same pond, with the same bait with the expectation of catching a different fish.  My personal definition of insanity is using the continued adage if we save one or two then we’ve done our job as a society…. INSANE!!! I believe if we continue to adopt this philosophy, then jails will continue to increase, student/teacher/family relationships will decrease and the pursuit of happiness as we know it will be pronounced deceased.

My name is Reginald Hester, Re-Entry Coordinator with Communities In Schools in Charlotte, NC. My position is very unique and untraditional. For one, I’m housed in the jail (though not as an inmate!). Secondly, I represent all 35 high schools within Mecklenburg County and hold a position that is a collaborative effort between Communities In Schools, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) and the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office.

In North Carolina you are considered an adult at 16 years, not to be confused with a juvenile delinquent (15 or younger). As a result, these inmates, known as “youthful offenders,” are housed within a maximum-security facility where they are schooled, literally. While in custody, they have an opportunity to continue their education because we have CMS teachers on site. They receive all four core subject areas and PE/health education. These students remain in school from 8 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. before being released back to their pods or housing units. Education and programming is mandatory with these youthful offenders. Simply put, we have zero attendance compliance and zero uniform compliance issues. While in custody the youthful offenders’ attendance is not affected during their incarceration. Once released, their grades and attendance is forwarded to their home school and the student is tracked. The greatest reward of this position is the opportunity to build healthy/productive relationships with my students. Dr. Milliken, founder of Communities In Schools, coined the phrase that it’s not programs but people that make education enjoyable. During this time of incarceration we attempt to get the youthful offender refocused, rekindle their flame and let them know how important they are. We try and tug at their heart strings that it’s ok to get knocked down but to never allow yourself to get knocked out. Upon their release, we link them to CIS coordinators within their identified home schools. We link them to community programs/agencies within their communities and we identify if they have young siblings, who we link to CIS. We track the youthful offender to ensure they are following their commitment to change and laying tracks to earn their high school diploma.

We recently celebrated our inaugural graduation celebration honoring our 2011 graduates. This event was well received by the community. In attendance was the Sheriff, county commissioners, CMS personal and the former Executive Director of Communities In Schools–Charlotte-Mecklenburg, who initiated this endeavor. All students that participated in this event will be attending college, which is the icing on this cake.

In closing, I feel I have the best position in the entire CIS community, not because of the job itself but because limitless possibilities that present themselves daily. With hard work, fostered relationships and stick-with-it-ness these youthful offenders will become who they were designed to be. 

Reginald Hester serves as the Re-Entry Coordinator for Jail North/Jail Central.  He enjoys reading, playing basketball and has discovered a newfound love for running. He also enjoy traveling, fashion and working with today’s youth! Check out this piece that aired on Charlotte’s WSOC-TV featuring Reginald and graduate Davon Davis.

This month’s “Overcoming Obstacles: CIS Success Stories” video explores the “hidden issue” of childhood hunger and showcases one of the most critical programs offered by CIS local affiliates around the state (and country), upheld by the manpower and generosity of volunteers each week—The BackPack Pals Program. Heather Little, Executive Director of CIS of Lee County, works with volunteers and guidance counselors like Audrey Stone to provide underprivileged children with food to eat on the weekends through the highly successful and desperately needed BackPack Pals Program. “Heather, Audrey and the volunteers that make BackPack Pals a success are proof that a little compassion can go a long way, and that ordinary people can—in Mother Teresa’ words—‘do small things with great love’ that help people who are struggling against extraordinary odds in unimaginable ways,” says multimedia producer Justin Cook below.  Special thanks to Denise Blanco-Durán for her assistance with Spanish translation.

Heather Little is petite but by no means little, and by no means are her goals, nor her vision for helping others and certainly not her heart.

She has one little wish.

She wishes that the fortunate would have to walk in the shoes of someone less fortunate for a week. Then maybe all the cranks, the critics, the naysayers and those lacking compassion would understand how so many make due with so little, so often.

Touched Heart

Heather’s motherly instincts are strong. She has two kids of her own so she knows how hard it is to run a smooth ship and make sure everyone is fed, clothed and ready for school. She brought the BackPack Pals program to CIS four years ago, which provides food in backpacks that low-income children can discreetly pick up from their guidance counselor each Friday and take home so they have enough food to make it through the weekend.

Heather says she volunteered with a similar program in Moore County, which is home to Pinehurst, lush golf courses and vacation homes. She saw an overwhelming need at the schools for basic food and her heart was touched.

“I started thinking that if it there is that much need in a county that is presumed to be wealthy, right here it’s gotta be needed!” she told me.

She said the process that followed was eye opening for her and the community. She told me a story about a businessman in Lee County who doubted there would be 25 kids at every school who need food on the weekend.

“I said to him, ‘You’re right! There’s more!’”

She went to principals and guidance counselors in the local schools and the answer was always the same: “Yes, we absolutely need this program.”

She began interviewing parents and students who applied for the program, and through their stories she realized that the need was shocking. In one interview she discovered a family was eating dog food on the weekends. “They instantly qualified,” she told me

Powers Combined

At Greenwood Elementary School, a short drive from Sanford in Lemon Springs, Heather met Guidance Counselor Audrey Stone who shares her concern and compassion. Their care for others united to help many families, including Esperanza Bustamante Marcero, mother of 1st grader Alan Calixto, 6, and his sister, 4th grader Stephanie, 9.

Audrey’s job is to remove barriers that prevent children from learning.

An obvious barrier affecting Hispanics in North Carolina is language.

Hispanic children, as young as 6, who are immersed in English at public schools often have to translate for their parents and help them navigate the complicated systems in our country so they can get the resources they need to survive.

The one barrier that Audrey and Heather know they can help children hurdle is access to food. “For a child to get excited over food is just incredible. You have kids out there who aren’t excited unless a new video game is in front of them, but you have some that are excited over food and easy to prepare snacks,” she tells me. Once that barrier is removed, a child’s mind and body is ready to learn and learning can break down any other barrier.

Audrey and Heather ultimately want the children they serve to feel normal, like the average child. By helping others, especially low- income families, have better access to food, parents can save money for other things that can help make their children feel normal. Esperanza told me in her native Spanish that because of BackPack Pals she and her husband (who works long hours) are able save money for Christmas presents for her five energetic children.

Heather, Audrey and the volunteers that make BackPack Pals a success are proof that a little compassion can go a long way, and that ordinary people can—in Mother Teresa’ words—“do small things with great love” that help people who are struggling against extraordinary odds in unimaginable ways.

Justin Cook is an independent documentary photographer who lives in Durham, NC. He is the multimedia producer behind Communities In Schools of North Carolina’s “Overcoming Obstacles: CIS Success Stories.” His work has been honored by College Photographer of the Year, Pictures of the Year International, Virginia Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and other organizations. Although Cook’s photojournalism is award-winning, he gauges his success not in trophies but in the relationships he establishes with his subjects. View his work online at www.justincookphoto.com.

This month, CISNC’s “Overcoming Obstacles: CIS Success Stories” video explores the issue of childhood hunger, showcasing one of most critical programs offered by CIS local affiliates around the state (and country)—The BackPack Pals Program—made possible by the manpower and generosity of volunteers each week. Below is an article that appeared in the June 14, 2006, edition of The Wall Street Journal about the Backpack Pals Program.

“For hungry kids, ‘backpack clubs’ try to fill gap”
Wednesday, June 14, 2006

By Roger Thurow, The Wall Street Journal

TYLER, Texas—Seven-year-old Cody Lozano and his 9-year-old sister Cherokee hurried into their house on a recent Friday afternoon and emptied their school backpacks. On the kitchen table, next to a family Bible and a pile of bills, each child laid out a box of Special K cereal, a carton of milk, a package of peanut-butter crackers, a cup of fruit cocktail, a bag of animal crackers, a carton of apple juice, a pull-top can of beans and franks and one of rice and beans.

It wasn’t a weekend homework assignment. It was their weekend breakfast, lunch and dinner…

Meet mentor/mentee pair Rose Locklear and Sequoya Tucker, who stand out as enjoying a wonderful relationship beyond just the mentoring program run by CIS of Robeson County, which has its focus on serving middle school students and primarily at-risk Native American students. Rose and Sequoya do all sorts of things together: they play tennis, go bowling, go to church together. CIS of Robeson County's mentoring program kicks off with the new school year, though Rose and Sequoya have seen each other all summer long. Meanwhile, CIS of Robeson annually operates one of the most successful back-to-school supply drives anywhere in the state. It’s called “Stuff The Bus!” and this year, it was accompanied by the statewide back-to-school drive called “Build A Backpack,” involving every single Walmart store in North Carolina. Check out this month's video below and also multimedia producer Justin Cook's blog post below to get to know Rose and Sequoya and more about the role of CIS of Robeson in the community of Lumberton/Pembroke, NC.

Dencie Lambdin is a steel magnolia. Rose Locklear is a rural rose.

Dencie, 61, is poised, polite and polished. Rose, 20, is rowdy, she’d "rather drive a Chevy" and is chocked full of country grammar.

Serving as CIS of Robeson County’s Executive Director was Dencie’s first job since she majored in education years ago. Before that she was a homemaker.

Rose, a junior at UNC-Pembroke, is a mentor because she knows what it is like to "have nobody" to look up to.

Both are sharper than barbed wire and determined to make a difference in the life of a child like Sequoya Tucker.

Up the Road

Rose’s sister left for college in New York when she was 12. She remembers so well because she was going through puberty and needed someone to talk to, someone close to her age who understood. When she was 13 her older cousin stepped in as her big sister, while her real sister was "up the road."

She wants to make sure that Sequoya, a 12-year-old rising 7th grader at Pembroke Middle School, has someone else to lean on, besides her adopted grandmother. For the summer, Rose has mentored Sequoya through CIS. They "church" together, too, and Rose drives her all over Robeson County where they play sports and get into mischief with other mentor-mentee pairs. Their mentoring relationship is atypical and awesome. It goes to show you don’t have to be a wealthy philanthropist or rocket scientist to be a mentor. You can be a normal person, with extraordinary love for others.

Their mentoring relationship is supposed to close by the end of the month, but you couldn’t tell if you watched Rose go with Sequoya to Pembroke Middle’s open house the day before school started. Rose will tell you she is looking “up the road” and is planning to continue the friendship past the expiration date. “I am gonna get her every week because I enjoy it. I don’t believe in doing something and ending it like it never happened, especially if it involves another person,” says Rose.

Passion

Dencie’s passion is connecting people, and by connecting people she can help people make choices that help students. She connected with Walmart in Pembroke to participate in the statewide “Build A Backpack” campaign that gathered donated school supplies for local children this summer. The rest of the 137 Walmarts across the state are participating, too, and Dencie hopes that between the supplies pulled in by the drive and the “Stuff The Bus!” campaign, now in its 7th year in Robeson County, there will be enough supplies to lower the burden on parents and teachers who often pay out-of-pocket for school supplies for their students.

"This is a way to not only to impact the students in our county but also for teachers to feel good about what their community is doing to support their roles in the classroom as teachers, mentors, surrogate mothers and fathers," says Dencie.

Denice loves her job and lives to give back to others. "There is always something that I can say ‘if CIS was not here, this wouldn’t be happening.’ That is what keeps volunteers going," she says.

She call’s the people of CIS "astounding" and they are. They are diverse, selfless and a reflection of all the things that make North Carolina great.

Justin Cook is an independent documentary photographer who lives in Durham, NC. He is the multimedia producer behind Communities In Schools of North Carolina’s “Overcoming Obstacles: CIS Success Stories.” His work has been honored by College Photographer of the Year, Pictures of the Year International, Virginia Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and other organizations. Although Cook’s photojournalism is award-winning, he gauges his success not in trophies but in the relationships he establishes with his subjects. View his work online at www.justincookphoto.com.

The following is from the August 2011 edition of Carolina Parent Magazine.  This particular piece is authored by Peggy Gisler and Marge Eberts.

Question: Every year, my children and I have a fantastic summer.  Then the first week of school comes, and their anxiety suddenly rises to very high levels.  How can we avoid this?

Answer: Parents can make back-to-school time less traumatic by clearning their schedules so they can focus on being there for their children.  The less parents have to do at home and on the job, the more relaxed they will be.  Children tend to be especially anxious if they are attending a new school or have had bad experiences the previous year.  This is the time for paretns to be calm, positive and reassuring.  They also need to be careful not to overreact to problems that pop up in the first days and to help their children develop coping strategies.  If children been bullied or teased the previous year, their new teachers need to know about this during the first few days to stop it from happening again.  Parents also can make the start of school more comfortable for younger children by arranging play dates for them during the first weeks of school.  This helps rebuild social relationships with classmates.