WorldLegacy Journey and Bill Gates

by | Jul 10, 2015 | Health, world | 2 comments

WorldLegacy Journey and Gates Foundation Grant

“Don’t waste your time! They’ll never fund a small project like yours.” Every time I mentioned going after a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant I heard that and if I hadn’t done the WorldLegacy training, I would have listened to this advice and given up. Instead, I used the courage, confidence and skills I found there to win a first-time $990,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the global polio eradication project I directed. With that additional money, we were able to add hundreds of thousand of children to our project and keep them safe from a crippling disease that still threatens children in the developing world with paralysis every year. And now the project staff and associates see that anything is possible! This was an extreme risk and will be an extreme giving project.
I am grateful to what I gained through the Leadership Journey.
Ellen Coates

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WorldLegacy Project: Prancing Horse

by | Jun 23, 2015 | Animal Domain, Article, Children, Prancing horse

Prancing Horse, Cameron, NC
Prancing Horse provides therapeutic horseback riding programs for special needs children, with a direct focus on those who come from under-privileged environments. This WorldLegacy Leadership project involved major renovations of the facility including updating the sensory riding trail.

Prancing Horse Revitalized

BY SUE SMITHSON: Equestrian Correspondent
Just a few months ago, Prancing Horse director Ronnie Meltzer thought the center for therapeutic riding might have to close. Fundraising was a constant struggle, the office roof was leaking, suitable equine donations were hard to come by, and many of their older horses were lame or otherwise unusable.
“It was bad, I didn’t know what we were going to do there for awhile,” Meltzer said.
For 20 years, Prancing Horse has provided therapeutic riding to hundreds of handicapped, impaired, or challenged children and adults in spring and fall 10-week sessions. The center is located between Vass and Cameron, just past Woodlake.

But thanks to local volunteer Ouida Newell of Carthage and the WorldLegacy, a Raleigh leadership-training center, Prancing Horse recently received a much-needed boost.
The old office trailer was replaced with a new one, used but in great shape. Newell said she started looking around for a new office trailer, and the first person she called had one sitting in the yard.

“We got it for half-price,” Newell said. As a Carthage antique dealer, Newell says she can al-ays “sniff out a bargain.”

The WorldLegacy leadership group, consisting of about 40 people from all over the country taking a three-month course, needed a community project.
They wanted a rural setting, and a project that would benefit children. Only manpower, not personal funds, could be spent, and they wanted to involve others.
The Prancing Horse sensory trail concept was conceived, birthed, and completed within one weekend. The trail winds through trees with chimes, spirals, pinwheels, elves, wooden bridges, and horse height mailboxes with surprises inside.

“It’s all about concepts,” Meltzer explained. “We go under, around and over. We count, we explore. This trail is so perfect.”
A new office and a new sensory trail goes a long way, but add three new instructors and a new horse donation, Lefreda Williams’ fox hunter Mousse, and Prancing Horse is on the rebound.
“We still have to stay on top of the fundraising efforts,” Meltzer said. “But the WorldLegacy group really gave us a shot in the arm.”

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WorldLegacy Extreme Giver Kay Reibold

by | Jun 18, 2015 | SLPprojects, world | 5 comments

WorldLegacy Extreme Giver Kay Reibold

WorldLegacy Leadership Graduate Kay Reibold is indeed an extreme giver. She has worked on behalf of the Montagnard indigenous people of Vietnam’s Central Highlands for over 20 years, including 17 trips to Vietnam during the time she was the Director of the Vietnam Highlands Assistance Project for Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas from 1989-2003. She is the Project Development Specialist for the Montagnard Human Rights Organization, based in Raleigh, North Carolina,

She has been a refugee advocate with unrelenting love and commitment. She has received three national awards for her contribution to refugee advocacy and human rights. Her earlier career as a writer and producer involved extensive research in China, Japan, the U.S., and Vietnam, including public television documentaries shot on-location in these countries. Two programs depicting the Montagnard people of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, Remembering the King of Fire and Living in Exile, were broadcast on PBS.

Kay remarked that when she visited she saw the people living in poverty. Even with poverty, the Montagnards still offered what little they had each time she visited the tribal people of Vietnam’s central highlands.”They have so much compassion and love and genuine friendliness for me,” she said. “They had very few chickens, and so to have a pig sacrificed or a chicken sacrificed in my honor was such an example of friendship and hospitality.”

In November 2001, Kay Reibold was a member of NC48 WorldLegacy Leadership Program in NC and afterward went on to do the WorldLegacy LP PhD program. She was also a senior coach for a WorldLegacy Leadership program. She had many trainers and coaches at WorldLegacy which were grateful to be able to coach such a powerful woman with a vision.
In 2005, Kay received the 2005 Unsung Heroines Award from Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who nominated her. In 2006 she testified at a U.S. Congressional Hearing on Vietnam. Kay Reibold is a WorldLegacy Extreme Giver.

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Genesis Home Getting a Fresh Start Article

by | Jun 11, 2015 | Family, Genesis, genesisarticle

Genesis Home
The NC38B project involved major renovation of the Genesis Home.  New flooring, fixtures, countertops and appliances were installed to improve the interior of the home.  June 2002.   NC115 chose their project at Genesis Home. Genesis Home envisions a community without homelessness in which everyone lives in safe and sustainable communities and shows compassion to neighbors in need. The project provided a safe environment for the children who would otherwise be at risk as they play and learn life skills, thus, NC115 provided compassion and camaraderie on the part of the participants and a place for the children to have safety and fun.  The tangible results included a commercial grade playground with protective materials under that equipment, repair of a broken, sagging gate enhancing safety, securing a chain link gate, removing a dangerous and cumbersome tree and repairing and staining the fence. The Budget was $15,000.

Genesis Home getting a fresh start of its own

PAUL BONNER phb@herald-sun.com
Date: June 11, 2001

For 12 years it has helped homeless families, with rehab work it can help more. For 12, years, Genesis Home has helped homeless families get a new start in life. Now, with some help from its friends, the organization is getting a new start of its own.

The center where families live while preparing for independence expanded in 1998 into a new, larger building next to the house at 300 N. Queen St. where it started, across Holloway Street from the downtown Durham Public Library.

But the original structure was deteriorating and needed remodeling with donations of building materials, skills and time.

That’s where the WorldLegacy of Chapel Hill came in.

On Saturday, members of the training program that often adopts community service projects worked up a sweat at Genesis Home, ripping up carpet and installing new flooring, fixtures, countertops and appliances, as well as painting and carpentry.

“Most of us are sort of just handymen, you might say,” said Libba Beerman, one of those who wielded scrapers, hammers, saws and paintbrushes. “We’re finding out we can do things we didn’t know we could do.”

For the tasks still beyond their ken, they enlisted experts, who also donated labor and materials. On Thursday, John Patrikios and Ruben Ortiz, employees of Choate Construction Co. in Raleigh, prepared the house’s kitchen for new flooring, countertops and appliances. They had earlier replaced and repaired the floor down to the joists in one corner of the kitchen where a refrigerator icemaker had leaked for a year or more, causing the floor to rot and sag.

“It’s a good cause,” Patrikios said.

Bryant-Durham Electric rewired parts of the house, and on Saturday, Jeff Peloquin, a building contractor, replaced ceramic tile in a bathroom makeover.

The house has been used for children’s tutoring classes and for family meetings with visitors in its front room, but the refurbishment opens new vistas, said Genesis Home Executive Director Stan Holt. They include serving other homeless people besides families, perhaps young people or those with mental illnesses.

“These options literally didn’t exist a year ago, because we didn’t know this rehabilitating was going to happen,” Holt said. “Legacy said, ‘We’re willing to do a major project.’ I said, ‘We’ve got a hole in the kitchen floor, a hole in the ceiling, and we’ve got a goal of rehabilitating this house, making it habitable again.’ ”

The house contain staff offices, with a room for computers, therapy, group meetings and activities and support services, Holt said.

Other groups, including the Volunteer Center of Greater Durham also have come to Genesis Home’s aid, organization officials said.

On Saturday, about a dozen or more members of a class of WorldLegacy that calls itself “Sweet 16,” since that’s how many they number, toiled cheerfully, greeting each arriving member with hugs. WorldLegacy offers workshops, seminars and leadership programs in which students participate in group activities that stress human potential and accountability. Several members of the Sweet 16s, who were of all ages and from across the Triangle area, used the word “empowerment” to describe the training.

“We were particularly interested in helping children,” Beerman said. “This one we felt was directly influential in helping children, a place where they feel they can have the possibility of moving up.”

Genesis Home presently is home to 10 families, two fewer than its capacity. The remodeling could add as many as five residential rooms. Residents learn many lessons, Holt said, but the most important is self-determination.

“I believe each individual has the capacity to succeed; we just give them the space to really succeed,” he said. “We don’t do it to them and for them. We really don’t.”

Rather, Genesis tries to “broker relationships” in education and employment and to help heads of families acquire “life management skills,” he said. The home offers seminars in job-hunting skills, such as job interviews. Outside groups, such as the Durham Literacy Council, send tutors. Staff members work with each family closely.

“We try to get people to think about their schedules and structure their day,” Holt said.

Unlike the Community Shelter for Hope, which houses individuals and families on an emergency basis for up to 90 days, Genesis can house families for as long as two years. Unlike the shelter, it requires an interview and approval. It also provides on-site childcare through its Kidspace program, which also serves families outside Genesis Home.

Residents “pay” rent for their stay by accumulating points each day for completing chores, fulfilling appointments with staff members, meeting personal goals and attending weekly house meetings. They must observe a curfew. They are expected to prepare their own meals and care for their own children most of the time. If they lack sufficient points, they are placed on a 30-day probation.

“A lot of people say it’s hard,” said Ann Tropiano, residential services director. “A lot of it is appreciated afterward, when they see what they’ve done.”

Homeless families differ widely, although the staff sees some common denominators in how they become homeless.

“Before this year I would have said substance abuse,” Tropiano said. “This year, it’s domestic violence. That and underemployment. There are a few with just poor money management.” Welfare reform has swollen their ranks, she said.

But their potential often is enormous, she added. “We’ve had some people with graduate degrees,” she said.

If Genesis didn’t exist, “a lot of children would not have a real sense of home and safety,” Tropiano said. “There would be a lot of overcrowding, with families living on relatives’ couches and floors.”

Reprinted from The Herald-Sun, (Durham, NC)

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SEEDS Helps Unused Land in Durham

by | Jun 1, 2015 | Article, Environment, SEEDS

SEEDS – Southeastern Efforts Developing Sustainable Spaces, Durham, NC

SEEDS is a non-profit organization whose mission is to help neighborhoods create sustainable green spaces. This WorldLegacy NC55 Leadership project planted 100 rose bushes and other plants, installed compost bins, a 75-foot privacy fence, a clay oven, bluebird houses, and painted murals. Budget: $15,000. June 2003.

SEEDS helps plant changes for unused land in Durham

Author: AL CARSON acarson@heraldsun.com
June 1, 2003

When Sarah Gibbs talks about “Food Alley,” she is not referring to a food court in one of Durham’s shopping malls.

Her idea is a narrow strip of mixed-use land in the middle of a large demonstration garden in East Durham.

“This is really starting to be permaculture,” said the executive director of SEEDS, located at 706 Gilbert St., a block north of intersection of Holloway and Elizabeth streets.

As Gibbs showed off her plants, a group of small children from a local daycare center trooped into the compound, “the Edgemont kids,” she said. “These are the most adorable children. They are painfully cute. They come here about once a week.”

While the children weeded their plot, Gibbs continued the guided tour of the garden, which includes many edible plants and flowers mixed in for pollination.

Peach trees, Filberts (nuts), pears, lemon balm, potatoes, strawberries, elderberries, blueberries, cranberries, paw-paws and thyme are growing in the alley.

Elsewhere tomatoes, sweet peas, squash and other vegetables flourish. One small plot is dedicated to herbs — thyme, oregano, pineapple sage, chives, cilantro, tarragon, dill and fennel.

South Eastern Efforts Developing Sustainable Spaces Inc., or SEEDS, was started in 1994 as a program to help turn vacant, abandoned lots into productive green spaces.

“What we’re working towards right now, is to continue to enhance it so that it is a Triangle-wide demonstration garden that will be known statewide,” Gibbs said of the project that also has educational purposes.

The organization, which owns some of its land and uses other tracts on loan to it, is supported mainly by individual donations and grants, with a small and dwindling portion of its funds coming from the city as budget times continue to be lean.

That’s why volunteers have become even more important to the organization that has been around nearly nine years. And Gibbs’ job is to get more people involved in volunteering with SEEDS. While donations of money are welcomed, there are other ways to help out.

“The best thing is for people to come and find out what we’re doing and if it’s something that matches their excitement, then we can help them figure out a way to get involved,” Gibbs said.

That could include donations of time, working with the board or working hands-on in the gardens, with the children. That is what happened recently for Betsy Barton and some of her friends.

“They just took us by storm,” Gibbs said of the Legacy volunteers. “They are a very motivated, really wonderful group of folks. They pull all the resources together and really focus on what they are doing.”

“The WorldLegacy is an organization in Morrisville that does leadership training, and we’re a group of people who all went through the training,” said Barton. “Part of what we do is pick a volunteer project and make amazing things happen in very short periods of time.”

The amazing things this group accomplished in five weeks were to raise $5,000, get Dickerson Fencing to erect a fence along Elizabeth Street, build a privacy wall on the south side of the garden and plant 100 roses donated by Home Depot.

“What we’re doing now is walking around the neighborhood and seeing if people around here would like a rose in their yard,” Barton said.

“We picked SEEDS because our group decided that we wanted to make to make a difference somewhere in the realm of children,” Barton said.

Jason Balius of The Mad Hatter Bakery has been a staunch supporter of SEEDS, buying fresh produce from the gardens for his restaurant. Volunteers also sell produce, herbs, plants and flowers at the Durham Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings.

The SEEDS campus is made up of several different plots, with a demonstration garden where people from the neighborhood come in and grow things. Across Gilbert Street is “the big garden” where they raise organic vegetables to sell — leaf lettuce, onions and other fresh produce.

“It’s real organic produce that teens from the community take to the market and sell and they also learn business skills,” said Will Ammons, a landscaper who is also with the WorldLegacy group.

Ammons has been “reaching out to the community,” as well as helping plant the roses and putting up the privacy fence, which protects the garden from pit bulls on the other side.

“We’re just outsiders, from all walks of life, who came in and raised a lot of money,” said Barton. “We came in and asked them, ‘What do you want?’ They created a wish list, and we negotiated and we said okay. They said it would be nice if we had a better fence, because people jump it at night and leave hypodermic needles in the garden.”

Dana Messick, a UNC student from Columbus, Ohio, began volunteering as part of a project through a class in the environmental studies department. She and a friend were weeding a bed of spring onions recently when they were asked about their volunteer work.

“I started coming out here in August once a week for a couple of hours and working with the DIG program, which is the Durham Inner-City Gardeners program,” she said. “Then the class ended in December, but I really liked it, so I’ve kept coming out and this semester Amanda has come with me.”

Amanda Harlow, a high school classmate of Messick’s, decided to join her friend in the work.

“It sounded like an interesting program and something good to do on Saturday mornings, get out of bed and get moving before noon and spend some time outside,” he said. “It’s good to be outside and be in the dirt and get away from Chapel Hill for a while.”

Precious Clemmons, a 10-year-old neighbor, was helping with the garden.

“I’ve been working,” she said. “I’ve been planting roses, three roses.”

Precious said she heard about the project when her brother came to an open house at the garden. Her favorite thing was planting the roses and she planted her rosebush Nicole.

“They all named their rose buses,” Barton said. “We taught them how to dig the hole and plant the bush and they felt like, ‘This is mine,'” she explained with a laugh. “So they named them.”

Gibbs sometimes hangs out with Precious and her friends from the neighborhood, working with them.

“For me, that is the real opportunity, when there are kids that have an interest and a desire to learn to grow things,” she said. “It’s their neighborhood and its great to help them get involved.”

While some of the workers are volunteers, some get paid, as does Chris Lyons, 17, a junior at Hillside in his third year with DIG.

“I heard about the job in class one day and I applied for the job.”

“It was originally started as a youth program, but we have some older folks, in the 18 to 21 age range,” Gibbs said. “We work with up to 10 right now, but we eventually want to expand that and have more educational opportunities.”

Those numbers are just with the DIG program. School groups often come in for an afternoon learning and working.

Over the years Lyons has grown more than plants. He has grown pride.

“We’ve done a lot with this land,” said Lyons, who is interested in studying computer programming and landscaping when he gets out of high school. “You can look at it and say, “It ain’t nobody else’s. That is ours.”

The SEEDS garden is open for viewing daily. There will be a SEEDS Community Garden Outdoor Arts Festival: Art Grows in Durham, from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, which includes a silent auction, music, a puppet show and more.

Reprinted from The Herald-Sun, (Durham, NC)

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