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Lyn Riddle

On being an Oprah fan

by Lyn Riddle

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Sep
17

Most days when Markylena Tolbert-Wydman leaves her job as a counselor at the Cancer Centers of the Carolinas, she says, “I’ll see you tomorrow unless Oprah calls.”

She Tivos the show every day and watches with her husband.

Winfrey has inspired her to do community service.

She is an Ultimate Fan.

Officially.

Tolbert-Wydman and her friend and co-worker Amy Dodds were among the 300 Ultimate Fans who attended the taping of Oprah’s final season premiere, which aired Monday. These are the folks who will spend 10 days in Australia with Oprah in December.

A couple of months ago, Dodds was home from work and watched the show. She heard that Winfrey was looking for her ultimate fans. Dodds decided to write about her friend and what Oprah has meant to her through the years.

Oprah has inspired Tolbert-Wydman, especially to do things for others, including early reading programs, serving at the Community Food Bank and as an election commissioner. Tolbert-Wydman is also a lay speaker for the Methodist Church.

Dodds dashed off an e-mail and then someone from the show called. They seemed interested because Dodds was writing on behalf of a friend, not herself.

They asked what Tolbert-Wyndham would do if she were selected.

“She would flip out and she did,” said Dodds.

Once Dodds got the official call inviting her and Tolbert-Wydman to the show, she called a meeting at work.

“You know how you always say if Oprah calls,” Dodds told her friend. “Well Oprah called.”

“I did my hallelujah dance,” Tolbert-Wydman said. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

When they arrived at the show on Sept. 9, they thought it was just a regular show, but in talking to others they got the idea these were the ultimate fans.

“People were so nice, so friendly I said it’s like we were in the South,” Tolbert-Wydman said.

She said she was stunned when she saw her hero walk onto the stage.

“I felt my spirit lift out of my body and it was floating in the air,” Tolbert-Wydman said.

Toward the end of the show, Winfrey brought up the idea of a trip. Philadelphia or New York, perhaps. Los Angeles. But then she said this was her last season and she needed to do something bigger.

“So I started to think about where would I most want to go,” Winfrey said. “Maybe I should take you all with me to the other side of the world.”

The audience members started screaming. Some cried.

“We’re going to Australia,” Winfrey shouted.

Dodds said she and Tolbert-Wydman screamed so much they lost their voices.

“We just got our voices back a couple of days ago,” Tolbert-Wydman said.

And then they came home and couldn’t tell anybody anything until the show aired on Monday.

“My husband said ‘you can tell me. I’m your husband.’ It was very hard to keep a secret like that,” Dodds said.

Reuters reported that the $2.8 million cost of the trip would be paid by the federal and state New South Wales governments to boost tourism.

Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson told the wire service it’s worth it. Some 40 million Americans watch the show.

Winfrey – Dodds and Tolbert-Wyndman ­in tow – will be in Australia for eight days and seven nights. At least two episodes of Winfrey’s show will be taped, including one on Dec. 14 at the Sydney Opera House.

Tolbert-Wydman said she hasn’t actually met Winfrey but understands they’ll be spending a lot of time with her on the trip.

Asked whether she intends to slip Winfrey her resume, Tolbert-Wydman said, “I will not but if the good Lord wills that then OK.”

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Lyn Riddle

On building dreams, with more than just pedal power

by Lyn Riddle

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Aug
5

Make no mistake, it was a hot Thursday afternoon.

Pretty near 100 in the feel-like category despite the early evening shadows that filled some of what was once a railroad track bed.

Eight middle school age children, four adults setting out on a journey of 20 miles.

On bicycles.

The Greenville Hospital System Swamp Rabbit Trail was their guide. They left before 7 p.m. from Linky Stone Park in downtown Greenville.

It wasn’t long before some of the girls started struggling physically.

“My legs are burning.”

“My knees hurt.”

“I feel like a loser because I’m in the back.”

David Taylor, one of the adults, shot right back, “I knew when I met you you were a great person. This isn’t a race. You’re going to get through it.”

Pedals whirred. The miles passed.

Along the way, walkers and joggers shouted encouragement.

They asked about the group.

It was the Building Dreams Bike Club, the walkers were told.

What wasn’t said was one child had been in a Department of Juvenile Justice facility. The fathers of some were in prison. All lived in homes where their mother was the only parent.

The bikes they rode were paid for with funds raised by the Furman University Diversity Institute, a statewide program to jump start the conversation among community leaders about the issues that separate us – the differences in cultural background, language, gender, physical ability.

Great Escape offered good deals and support for what would have been $400 bikes to anyone else. Trek Navigators 1.0. Taylor bought one for himself.

The Sterling Center selected the kids. The group has been meeting since early summer.

St. Frances Hospital sent folks to talk about wellness and exercise. A community cop who rides a bike for work described the rules of the road for bikes.

Clemson University’s Building Dreams program facilitated it all.

And Greenville Spinners bike club educated them on bike safety and led the Thursday ride and several others as well.

When the group eased into Travelers Rest, they stopped at the convenience store across from Sunrift Adventures.

“We just rode 10 miles,” Taylor called out.

“We don’t get this far in our car,” one child said.

And there it was, the underlying reason for this and so many wonderful programs for children who don’t have all the benefits life can offer.

Raising aspirations. Showing the children worlds beyond their own. Building dreams, which by the way, is the name of Taylor’s program, a part of Clemson’s Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life. Building Dreams works with children with at least one parent in prison.

“This gave them the opportunity to explore, to take off and be exuberant,” Taylor said.

Once the summer’s over, a ceremony will be held to give the children the bicycles to take home. This fall, they’re going to do a service project of some sort, perhaps raise money for cancer research. To give back to the community. To do something for others.

It took them about two and a half hours to complete the ride to TR and back to Greenville. Everyone made it.

“It was wonderful seeing the joy on their faces when they actually did it,” Taylor said.

Bikes loaded back up, children driven home.

And one child asked, enthusiasm fully in gear, “Where are we going next?”

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Lyn Riddle

On finding a family

by Lyn Riddle

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Jul
30

One by one, they walked up the hill to the white clapboard church they knew so well.

And in their own way, they felt the same as the man who said, “If it wasn’t for this place, I don’t know what would’ve happened to me.”

The event was the Miracle Hill Children’s Home Reunion, which takes place every two, then every three years. Former residents – young adults to almost retired – come back to the 130 acres in Pumpkintown in Pickens County to see many of the people who took them in when no one else wanted them.

Sharon Tiano arrived in 1964 when she was 12 with her 11-year-old sister and 8-year-old brother. Her mother told them they were going shopping for school clothes.

“We ate lunch, went down to the office and the man said ‘are they staying’ and she said we were,” Tiano said.

Then her mother, grandmother and aunt, drove down the hill.

“Sometimes you don’t get over it,” Tiano said. “I regret how she did it, but it was the best thing.”

Miracle Hill got its name while the first building was being constructed in 1958. The walls were up, but the roof wasn’t. And the folks prayed that a storm passing through would spare their work. It rained everywhere but on that building, they said.

Then, dormitories housed the children, the children of abuse, neglect. Troubled and unwanted, they found solace and a home with dorm parents like Miss Pat, who seemed to know a little something about everyone who walked into the chapel.

“I had her as a dorm parent when she was 7 and now she’s a grandparent,” she whispered as a woman walked in.

The former residents were asked to talk about what they remember.

“When I came to Miracle Hill I moved up in life,” said a man who lived there for 10 years and for the longest time sat on the steps on Friday afternoons waiting for parents who never came back.

“Everything we have learned we have taught our children. It goes on for generations,” one woman said.

“I came here at six months,” another man said. “I learned the value of hard work and the love of country and God.”

Reid Lehman, the president of Miracle Hill Ministries, which includes the Rescue Mission in Greenville and a number of other shelters, grew up on the property because his father was the director. He said the best part of growing up there was he met his wife.

Today, 40 boys and girls live in what are now cottages straddling the Oolenoy River. Another 45 – 38 younger that 6 – live with foster families.

Lehman said the philosophy in its simplest term could be described as effective parenting. The longer, more complicated version, is they use a matrix developed by Cornell University that relies on rewards and expectations rather than punishment and criticism.

He said it is not uncommon for people to leave the protected and prim world of Miracle Hill and veer off for a bit. It’s a disappointing part of the work, but through the years he has seen the same phenomenon happen again and again.

Former residents remember where they came from. One man said he got locked up not long after he left and sitting in jail thought of the lessons he’d learned.

“I’ve never been in jail again,” he said.

Tiano had her struggles, but raised three daughters, largely on her own, held a job and cared for her mother in the last years of her life. Now she’s 58, a barber in a shop where politicians tend to gather in Goose Creek. She’s remarried ­– two years to a man who brought his youth group from their church to work at Miracle Hill for a week before the reunion.

Tiano teared up thinking back on her life, and stood proudly as she pointed down the hill toward the small cemetery.

“This is home. My wish is to be buried right down in that cemetery,” she said.

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Lyn Riddle

On friendships to fill a life

by Lyn Riddle

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Jul
22

Monty Long celebrated her 60th birthday by jumping out of an airplane.

With a parachute, of course, and a skydiving instructor.

She’s also rediscovered skiing, and tore her ACL in the process. But that didn’t hold her back as evidenced by a recent ski trip to Canada.

She’s hopped on the back of a motorcycle with one son, hunted deer with another.

It’s all part of her desire to live life to the fullest – to create a bucket list of sorts. The things left to do.

She said last year’s skydiving trip with her oldest son was the most empowering thing she’s ever done. Afterwards, she told herself, “It’s time to get out of your comfort zone.”

Long and her husband Lee have been married 29 years. He owns Long Utilities, a subdivision builder, and for the most part she stayed home and raised their three boys.

Her world revolved around football and all the other trappings of child life. The people she associated with were largely the mothers of her son’s friends.

“I didn’t make the time for friends, she said.

Then one by one, the boys grew to that independent stage where even though they live with you, they don’t really.

So she got to know her neighbors in Bruce Farm. And that was step one of the active life she lives now.

Sixty percent of the women in the subdivision get together once a month for lunch. Eight get together for weekly dinner. Some travel together – like the ACL-tearing trip. They play bridge. They stay at each other’s beach or mountain houses.

“How can you have so many people you’re so crazy about?” Long wonders sometimes. There are so many activities the husbands sometimes feel abandoned.

They’ve been to New York City, on a cruise to the Caribbean.

“We’re absolutely insane,” she said.

Long is a fervent traveler, taking each of her sons to Europe and going twice with the whole family to Alaska, once to Hawaii. New Orleans, Las Vegas, a helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon.

A girlfriend of a son called at 10 p.m. one night and said she was trolling around Travelocity and found a great deal to Cancun. The plane left at 9 a.m. the next morning. From Charlotte. Long was on the plane after spending much of the night digging out summer clothes.

“I don’t care where or what accommodations,” she said. “There’s nothing I don’t want to see.”

So now that’s she’s got this empowerment going, she’s decided to get more for her 61st birthday in October. Another jump.

She also wants to slide down a zip line – she hears Costa Rica is best for that. A balloon ride would be nice. Also some hiking on the Appalachian Trail. She got that idea from a picture she found of herself recently at two years old, standing in front of an AT trail marker.

Ireland. Martha’s Vineyard.

“I could call somebody and within a week we’d be off somewhere,” she said.

Her life, she said, for a long time was filled with maleness thanks to the men she loves. Even her two springer spaniels and her cat are male.

“Nobody sees eye to eye with girl things,” she said.

With her friends, she has added an outlet for living – and for developing bucket lists.

“I never realized how important friendships are,” she said.

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Lyn Riddle

On remembering summer days

by Lyn Riddle

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Jul
17

South Carolina Information Highway – known colloquially as Sciway – has some suggestions for how to spend July in South Carolina.

I love this online service from James Island. It offers a thorough look at the goings on in our state, the festivals, the cool websites, the history.

So when I saw the e-mail announcing July events, I eagerly opened it and found a path back into my childhood summers with my grandmother.

Here’s what they said:

Feast on a peach – This year’s expected to be a bumper crop – which means 60,000 tons of peaches grown on 18,000 acres – more than Georgia, the Peach State. The prevailing smell of my grandmother’s summertime kitchen was ripe peaches. With pudgy, nimble fingers and a well-worn paring knife, she’d strip those beauties clean and either slice them into a bowl for breakfast or a casserole dish for cobbler.

Sometimes we’d pass Taylor’s Peach Shed, but never went in. Friends and family regularly brought peaches along with homegrown tomatoes and cantaloupe and all manner of vegetables to her five-room home in Greer.

I am sure my aged mind has warped the memory but it seems like that backdoor slapped with visitors every 10 minutes. And just as no one ever left her house without her giving them something, no one arrived empty handed either.

Live large on local shrimp. Now this was one foodstuff I rarely saw at my grandmother’s table but we sure ate it at Myrtle Beach for that one-week vacation – always July 4 – every year. We’d stay at a motel on the oceanfront. My uncle didn’t believe in making reservations, but we never wanted for a clean bed and an ocean view. Sciway mentioned paring the shrimp with corn on the cob, hush puppies – yes – and cold beer – a definite no in my family.

Hit the road. We spent a lot of time at home, but on special weekends one of my aunts would invite us all up to her place in the North Carolina mountains near Tuxedo. This usually involved driving the Willys Jeep around the little lake my uncle created. Yes, we were 12 and yes, we did get it stuck in the mud, which resulted in my uncle pulling it out and saying, “Ready to go again.” My cousin and I always wanted to spend the night in the silver trailer by ourselves, but if it was raining we were out of luck. Grandma wanted to fall asleep the sounds of raindrops meeting tin.

Catch a wave. Already covered that but Sciway also says go surfing, which was not something any one of us had heard much about 40 years ago.

Sit and sip. Or in other words, drink tea. This was the only drink found in my grandmother’s house as far as I recall. I’m sure she had milk and juice but that was not on my menu. There was nothing puny about my grandmother’s tea. It was steeped and sweet. Very.

Years ago no one asked for sweet tea. It just was. That was the only way it was made. Now the modifier is used universally.

Sciway suggests taking your sweet tea, inviting someone over and sitting in rocking chairs for some conversation. Days at Grandma’s generally ended up this way. She never had central air so outside offered the coolest spot. The older folks would gather in her effusively landscaped backyard to sit on metal shell chairs and recount the events of the day.

The young ones would nest on her wrap-around porch, usually spying on the neighbors, some of who were actually quite interesting. One man shunned his front door for a window. We never figured out why he left and entered his house that way.

It occurs to me many of Sciway’s suggestions trade on a stereotypical view of the South. But then stereotypes would not be without some basis in fact.

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Lyn Riddle

On connections to last a lifetime

by Lyn Riddle

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Apr
30

Six childhood friends.

Those who went to college chose different schools.

One married soon after graduation.

Two got jobs.

All but one left their hometown of Martin, Tenn., after graduation in 1971. They ended up in Greenville, St. Petersburg, Fla., Knoxville, Memphis.

Yet, at least once every year – sometimes more often than that – they spend several days together relishing each other’s company.

These women in their mid-50s are touchstones for one another. Despite the differences in the lives they have led, the men they married (and, for some, divorced), the children they bore or not, the money they earned, they have stayed together just like the characters in Cassandra King’s novel “Same Sweet Girls.”

Greenville optometrist Brenda McGregor – her friends call her Pug – is one of the women.

She is back from the annual trip – this year they went to Treasure Island, near St. Petersburg.

“One girl picks a date and we go,” McGregor said. “This year she surprised us with this beautiful waterfront home owned by a doctor. We felt like we were in Architectural Digest.”

McGregor talks about the women with such joy and intimacy it’s easy to feel you know them, too.

Janet: who arranged for the house, divides her time between St. Pete and Franklin, N.C., married her high school sweetheart, divorced, remarried and is now retired from the insurance business. Her father picked the girls up in a Silver Cloud Rolls.

Louisa: also lives in St. Pete, is a widow with deep spirituality, the exotic one who does yoga and has a gift for seeing meaning in things others overlook.

Bonita: worked three jobs to raise her children during a difficult marriage, is remarried and lives in Knoxville.

Carol: sold a hotel renovation business two years ago, the most creative of the bunch who can wrap a present so beautifully you don’t want to unwrap it – “Our Martha Stewart.”

Donna: lives in Martin and is a funeral director with grandchildren she adores.

Pug: got her name because her brother upon her birth said “Uncle Joe’s pug is cuter than that baby” and describes herself as the “boring one,” married 30 years to an engineer, retired two years ago from her practice.

There is a litany of information about the value of long-term friendships. Journalist Jeffrey Zaslow wrote a book about 10 women from Ames, Iowa, who have virtually the same experience. No distance or passage of time diminishes the bond.

It might be seen as an oddity in these times as people move all over the country chasing dreams and jobs. The false ties of texting and e-mail and most assuredly Facebook are not stand-ins and, in fact, probably keep folks from forging true bonds.

It’s not that the women of Martin, Tenn., did not change. It’s that they changed in ways that were expected and they have a rich history to hold onto. No need for explanation. Comfort. Fun. Sometimes pain. Always a profound connection.

This year the Martin girls played board games and prepared exquisite dinners. They walked the beach every morning. And of course had their time together where they tell each other what has happened in the months since they last met. Nothing is held back. This year offered two major surprises, but they’re not for public consumption.

It was a year to rejoice because Bonita marked the important fifth year as a cancer survivor. They gave her a pink necklace and bracelet designed by Emily Ray, whose mother died of breast cancer and who donates $5 of every sale to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Each year someone is honored for something special that’s happened, a shower for a grandma to be, a retirement, a marriage. The rites of passage through life shared with someone you’ve known almost as long as you’ve been lived.

And there’s an added benefit.

“We’re all a hoot,” McGregor said.

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Lyn Riddle

On raising children

by Lyn Riddle

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Apr
3

When my children were growing up, I often wished I had a handbook for raising children.

Something like when they do this, you do this and all will be well with the world and the children will grow up happy and healthy.

Sure there was Dr. Spock and one I can’t even think of the name now that were must reads in the 1980s.

I just googled looking for the name and can’t find it, but I see today’s young parents have “Raising the Spirited Child” and “Raising Children who Think for Themselves” and even “Raising the Vegetarian Child.”

It just wasn’t easy, but then it never is, in any generation. Especially with the first child. You analyze every action and wonder if I do or say this will I cause him irreparable harm. I convinced myself for the longest time that I stifled my oldest son’s creativity when at 4 I refused to buy him red tennis shoes. Red? White was so much better.

All this to get back to my main point: This morning the associate pastor at my church handed me a single page of information that could have served as my playbook for childrearing. It was from Search Institute, a Minneapolis based non-profit whose mission is to promote healthy children.

On this sheet of paper was a list of 40 developmental assets children should have to be successful in life. Things like family support, caring school climate, service to others, creative activities, motivation, positive values, decision making, sense of purpose.

And of course there is self-esteem, which so many well-educated yet misguided people have mocked in recent years.

The list seems like common sense stuff. Tell the truth. Read for pleasure. Be creative. Serve others.

But here’s the rub.

Researchers were careful to say there was no magic number for how many attributes children need, but the data showed 31 of the 40 were “worthy, though challenging.”

Eight percent of the children studied had 31 or more.

Seventeen percent had zero to 10.

The average was 18.

And the number got worse as the child aged. In sixth grade, the average number of assets was 23, by 12th grade it was 17.8.

The research also showed it made no difference where the child lived – rural, suburban or urban. Socioeconomic status mattered not. Neither did race.

Here’s some more stats:

Of the children with zero to 10 attributes, 45 percent had problem alcohol use, 62 percent were violent, 38 percent used drugs and 34 percent were sexually active.

On the other end of the spectrum, 3 percent of children with more than 31 attributes had problems with alcohol, 6 percent were violent, 1 percent used drugs and 3 percent were sexually active.

As we try to teach our children, all action – parental and otherwise – has consequences.

The associate pastor gave me this information because he was telling me about the meeting of the General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship at our church, Pelham Road Baptist, April 23 and 24. The overarching theme of the meeting is being intentional about student ministry.

That means making student ministry a congregational effort rather than a department in the church. One session for student ministers is based on Search Institute’s study. The meeting planners know churches cant compete with new media and television and video games, but they can compete when it comes to relationships. Several of the assets Search Institute identified had to do with children having relationships with adults other than their parents.

It’s yet another stab at living that age-old African proverb: It takes a village to raise a child.

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Lyn Riddle

On tackling poverty, together

by Lyn Riddle

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Mar
19

It’s an old-fashioned gospel sing on Sunday at Pendleton Street Baptist Church.

Kyle Matthews, Larry McCullough & Chosen Generation, USC Upstate Gospel Choir

Joyful Sound from North Greenville University and Bethel Full Gospel Baptist Church Praise Dancers all will be singing praises in what’s being billed as a Musical Extravaganza.

An extravaganza with a deep underpinning to do good.

It is one of those awesome occasions when community groups work together for a common cause. And as we have seen over and over again in Greenville, when groups get together, things get done.

This time it’s to benefit United Ministries, Triune Mercy Center and Greenville Area Interfaith Hospitality Network to help them combat poverty.

The three have been collecting quarters to put on display Sunday. The goal is 50,000, a quarter to represent every person in Greenville County living below the poverty line. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers anyone who makes less than $10,830 to be living in poverty. For a family of four, the threshold is $22,050.

The folks at Triune, United Ministries and GAIHN witness the circumstances of Greenville County’s poor every day.

On Wednesday at Triune some 70 people showed up to get groceries and clothes. But 15 had to be turned away with nothing. Imagine what that looked like.

“There is so much need out there,” said the Rev. Deb Richardson Moore. “So many people struggling, so many children born into unstable households that are going to perpetuate poverty if we can’t do something to break the cycle.”

Moore said progress was being made but then came the economic downturn.

“It knocked us backward,” she said. “We are seeing so many new people who possibly have never gone anywhere before.”

But amid it all, there are stories of hope.

Like Bobby who spent three years and four months sleeping under bridges and now owns a home and speaks to college students about life on the street. And John who overcame addiction and then spent seven months looking for a job before being placed as a temp in a local business. He has since been hired fulltime and his boss is redesigning Triune’s Web site.

Moore said the gospel sing is the first time the three organizations have come together for a fundraiser.

In the broadest possible terms, the three have similar missions – to help those in need. But each plays its own role.

United Ministries is by far the biggest of the organizations. With 27 paid staffers, the agency supplies emergency assistance, prepares people for jobs, offers adult education and operates the Place of Hope, which provides services for the homeless such as mail, showers and laundry as well as social services.

GAIHN works with local congregations to provide emergency housing and meals to homeless families.

Triune was established about a century ago as a Methodist church. It has since become an independent interdenominational church that offers Sunday worship services as well as a soup kitchen, clothes closet, food pantry, and linen closet.

Moore said for the past several years representatives of Triune, United Ministries and Greenville Mental Health have met every Monday afternoon to share information and offer support for one another.

This is not easy work.

The Upstate Homeless Coalition works to find gaps in services and meet those needs for a 13-county area. Representatives of a host of agencies serve on the board and businesses throughout the area work closely with the organization.

To say poverty – and its cousin homelessness – are bigger problems than any one organization can conquer seems obvious.

But sometimes it seems we don’t act like we know it. Sunday might be a good time to show we understand and appreciate this work the agencies do.

Fifty-thousand quarters represents $12,500 raised so far.

The concert is free, but an offering will be taken. Asked whether people should bring quarters, Moore laughs and says, “Oh, no. We’re hoping they will be putting in extremely large bills and checks.”

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Lyn Riddle

On what it means to be a hero

by Lyn Riddle

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Mar
19

There’s nothing fancy about the way Generations Group Homes looks, but it is magical nonetheless.

Boys, abused and victimized by others, arrive at the southern Greenville County facility after committing some sort of sexual act against someone else. It is their second chance. For many the only other choice would have been juvenile jail.

Often they come in shackled, wearing a jumpsuit and carrying a plastic bag with a toothbrush inside. They are 13 to 17 years old.

The boys enter a regimented life of chores and responsibilities and consequences when they fall short. They go to school. They dress up in slacks, shirts and ties for field trips. They sleep in dorms and more often than not cover their twin beds with comforters bearing the name of their favorite sports teams. They have birthday parties, many for the first time. Musical chairs is the No. 1 attraction at the fall festival.

In short, they get to have the sort of lives they should have had before.

And that largely is because the staff at Generations has managed to create something special among co-workers. They’re not just colleagues, but an extended family, caring for as many as 46 boys at a time.

They show respect, one to the other. They care when concerns outside of work bear down. They stand in for one another when necessary.

“We have each other,” said Charlene Jones, the child care services director.

And that’s vital because this is not easy work. It’s messy.

Boys come in angry. They throw desks. They curse. They refuse to participate.

But then the magic happens.

They notice a staff member cares, maybe it’s their counselor, but it might also be the cook. They see the other boys following the rules, getting privileges. They make a connection with an adult, often the first they’ve had in their lives.

With sexual abuse, the problem has little to do with sex and everything to do with power. The boys felt powerless in their victimization and they acted out.

At Generations, they become part of a group, something bigger than themselves, and that basic human need to belong is met.

“Kids will go to any group that accepts them,” said Kathleen Reynolds, the chief executive officer. “That’s why gangs are so prevalent.”

Reynolds founded Generations in 1991 as a tribute to her younger sister who was raped on a date. The trajectory of her sister’s life changed immediately. Reynolds wanted to make sure others had a different choice.

The nature of the program change in 1999 when Reynolds questioned whether they needed to restrain the boys as often as they did. She discovered Cornell University had developed therapeutic crisis intervention, which begins with preventing a conflict from developing in the first place and then offers tools to de-escalate those that do.

“Instead of rule enforcer, we’re teachers,” said Brian Clark, the facility director.

He said they break through the walls the boys have erected to protect themselves through mutual respect, investing in them with sensitivity and by simply being available. That means noticing when someone is having a bad day or a tough time with homework. That means stopping and taking the time to talk.

It is offering a gentle yet firm hand.

And then comes more magic. Once a boy realizes what happened to him is not his fault, that he is a worthy individual, the desire to act out in that way vanishes.

And here’s how they know. They surveyed all the boys who had come through the program in the past five years – about 400. They discovered 98 percent had not had another sexual offense and 92 percent had no offense at all. And they counted traffic tickets as offenses.

In the education building there is a wall of heroes that lists the names of boys who finish the tough program before their sentence is up. It also lists the names of donors.

There should be another list: staff members. Heroes all.

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Lyn Riddle

On friends with a purpose

by Lyn Riddle

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Mar
5

Books brought them together. Breast cancer gave them a cause.

The Whine and Wine Book Club started meeting about three years ago, every third Tuesday of the month. It was as much a time for laughter and socializing as for discussing literature.

Then came the month they read a book by Jill Conner Browne of Sweet Potato Queen Fame, the franchise that offers help for every occasion such as raising children for fun and profit (yes, that is the name of one of her books).

Club member Jessica Traynham had arranged a surprise. She had e-mailed Browne and asked her to call during the meeting. And Browne did.

The women were so taken with the book, the woman, the night, they decided to start a Sweet Potato Queen chapter.

But Traynham and friend Juli Spann were not content to just dress up in big red wigs and costumes that made their you know whats much bigger than normal and march in Christmas parades.

“The fun can only go so far,” Traynham told Spann.

They settled on breast cancer awareness and called themselves the Ta-Ta Queens. Many Sweet Potato Queen chapters, including the original group, raise money for certain causes, but these Upstate ladies took it a step farther. They established a non-profit, the only Sweet Potato Queen chapter in the country to do so.

“We want to make a difference in our community,” Spann said.

They promote early detection and the importance of mammograms. They’ve joined with Race for the Cure and other events focused on breast cancer. They wear pink and have a 14-foot-long pink trailer for parades.

“Those big red wigs do make people notice us,” Spann said. “And that’s the point.”

Last year they staged their first fundraiser. It was at the Upcountry History Museum and about 150 people showed up, all by word of mouth. They made a little more than they spent, Spann said.

This year is a whole ‘nother story.

They are having the event at the Hilton Garden Inn. It’s A Royal Cotillion for Queens and Their Kings. Food, drink, auction, band.

And Browne.

Not only will the original queen attend the April 24 event, but she has waived her $15,000 speaking fee. And she’s bringing one of her crowns to be auctioned.

The reason is the group wants to do more than pass out literature and be big-haired pretty. They want to provide every woman battling breast cancer in the area – from those just diagnosed to those recovering from surgery – with The Royal Treatment Package.

“It will be full of things to make their life easier,” Spann said.

Tailored to individual needs, the package will include coupons, gift cards, housecleaning services, pillows to place under the arm during recuperation, information on where to get wigs or bras. Browne has also given them a number of autographed books to include.

“Humor helps in any situation,” Spann said.

They intend to ask doctors to offer information about the package to patients and their families, who in turn call and request one.

Spann said it is especially gratifying when a cancer patient tells her “You made me laugh.”

Everyone in the Ta-Tas has been touched by breast cancer. One is a survivor. Others have aunts or cousins, mothers or sisters who have battled the disease.

And at every appearance something touching happens.

At one, a woman asked one of the members to go with her to her next appointment.

“She wanted one of us to go hold her hand,” Spann said.

And one of them did.

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