A seat at the table
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on November 23, 2014 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Shycole Simpson-Carter, left, speaks with fourth-graders Jeremiah Leach, Ja'Kerreyon Keichum, Quran Crawford and Cashmere Faison in the lunchroom at Carver Heights on Friday.
Shycole Simpson-Carter remembers what it was like to be hungry.
The daughter of a mother who was raising four children on her own, she knew food was scarce -- and that sometimes her mother did not eat so she and her siblings could.
"My mother was a single parent of four living in public housing," she said. "My mother was receiving AFDC checks, and there wasn't enough to feed us. There were times where a meal for us was a pack of 'oodle-noodles' with bologna or hot dogs cut up in it for four children. And there were times my mother didn't eat. There were times she went without a coat so we could have one. I watched her not be satisfied with that life."
So now, as the administrator for the city's community development department, she uses her own story to connect with those who are struggling themselves to make sure there is food on the table every day.
And it is why she takes the effort to eradicate hunger in the community -- and her new role as the leader of the project -- so seriously.
She wants children who are born in poverty to understand that they can get out of their circumstance and create good lives of their own.
But first she wants to make sure they are not going hungry.
And it is more of a problem than people think, she said.
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More than 8,000 children go hungry in Wayne County every day, Ms. Simpson-Carter said, about 26 percent of the population.
At two elementary schools in Goldsboro -- North Drive and Carver Heights -- more than 97 percent of children live in extreme poverty, allowing them to receive free meals from the schools through the Community Eligibility Provision Program.
Goldsboro currently has 12 schools that participate in the CEPP, a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that allows schools in high poverty areas to give their students access to free and reduced lunch regardless of income.
Carver Heights Elementary, Goldsboro High, Dillard Middle, Eastern Wayne Elementary, North Drive Elementary, School Street Elementary, Brogden Middle, Brogden Primary, Carver Elementary, Fremont STARS Elementary, Spring Creek Elementary and Wayne Academy all participate in this program.
This means free and reduced lunch applications were not handed out at the beginning of this school year. Instead, students at these schools automatically receive their meals at no cost.
Hunger particularly impacts schoolchildren, who might be fed at school, but who do not have access to meals once they are at home at night, on the weekends and over holidays.
"There's access to breakfast and lunches, but what about dinner?" said LaTerrie Ward, director of community affairs for the city of Goldsboro. "The kids are not in school then. A lot of programs operate during school hours, so what happens when the kid goes home and doesn't have dinner?"
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Officials are currently taking inventory of the programs already in place to combat hunger, as well as analyzing what can be done moving forward.
"We're researching, looking into federal and state level grants, as well as talking to departments and seeing what programs we can offer," Ms. Simpson-Carter said. "There's a lot of logistics looking into it, and it may not be a big project starting off. We may have to look at small-scale projects first."
Some of those efforts to combat the problem include inserts in city utility bills to inform residents of the problem as well as having the Parks and Recreation department apply for grants from the National Recreation and Park Association, which would allow the department to feed children year-round.
Parks and Recreation already operates open feeding sites for eight weeks during the summer at Herman Park and the W.A. Foster Center.
Scott Barnard, Parks and Recreation director, said the summer programs fed more than 3,000 children this summer based on serving a combined 80 meals a day, five days a week, five hours a day.
W.A. Foster Center leader Gladys McClary said she serves anywhere from 40 to 70 children per day over the summer.
Herman Park recreation superintendent Felicia Brown said anywhere from 25 to 50 children are served per day.
Officials are also looking at where more food banks can be placed in the city to allow for a greater area to be covered.
Goldsboro already has 16 food banks or food distribution sites around the city. Ms. Ward said one of the biggest concerns is actually being able to get that food to children in need.
Hazel White, a volunteer with the HGDC Community Crisis Center at 607 S. Slocumb St., said very few children are coming in due to school currently being in session. She said the charity is mostly serving adults right now.
John Crafter, with the House of Fordham at 412 N. William St., said the charity's supplies are holding up right now, as a delivery truck recently came to replenish stock.
But food distribution areas are in constant need of fresh food stocks, and are dependent on community donations.
"These places are dependent on communities to help fill up their pantries," said Sheila Bynum, who has led food drives for pantries in the area. "It can be a struggle to fill them up and keep them full."
Ms. Bynum said she has heard that there is an increased demand for food aid in the community as of late, and she and her team are currently planning an effort to provide food to children on nights and weekends throughout the school year.
Ms. Ward also said the type of food that is being handed out needs to be analyzed and possibly improved.
"You hand out foods that need to be cooked at food banks, but I might not have a pot to cook the food in if I'm living in extreme poverty," Ms. Ward said. "So say I get a raw turkey -- I might sell that turkey to someone else and go to McDonald's. That's the easy way out."
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Programs that target hunger have another benefit, Ms. Simpson-Carter said. They give children who are victims of extreme poverty the chance to see the possibility of a better life.
"My mother repeatedly drilled into us that this is a vicious cycle and that she wanted her children to break this cycle," she said. "She wanted us to come up out of poverty and to not have the worries associated with poverty. She wanted us to do better than what she did, and she did her best. She was awesome."
Education is the key to beating poverty, Ms. Simpson-Carter said. She fervently pursued a business and accounting degree, and has worked in public service for many years because she wants to help people growing up in circumstances similar to her own.
It is advice others in the community service business also pass along to those who are struggling.
"Education is something people cannot take away from you," Ms. Ward said.
And sometimes, a child's determination can inspire a parent.
Ms. Simspon-Carter's mother, all the while pushing the importance of education to her children, began attending night school to obtain a degree, and eventually became an educator herself.
"She was tough. She was strong. I never watched her complain," she said. "She walked us to the bus stop when she didn't have a coat, and I never watched her show any sign of weakness. She encouraged and she pushed education on us, and that was the reason I pursued my education path as fervently as I did. I want my daughter to do even better than what I've done."
There is also a stigma associated with children who receive help in the form of free and reduced lunch, Ms. Simpson-Carter said, and she experienced this discrimination firsthand.
"I received free and reduced lunch up until I was a senior," she said. "I can tell you myself it was embarrassing. I was on the basketball team and part of what was considered a popular group, but I was still embarrassed to go get my lunch, because they knew I was receiving free and reduced lunch."
For the 2013-14 school year, 4,991 of 7,025 students in the Goldsboro city school district received free or reduced lunch.
Ms. Simpson-Carter said she believes the stigma associated with receiving free or reduced lunch stems from children not fully understanding what their peers are dealing with and going through when circumstances require that they receive free or reduced lunch.
"A lot of times, as I tell my daughter, they haven't had to grow up in that environment where there's a lack of a certain need being met," Ms. Simpson-Carter said. "So you don't know what it's like. When I talk to her about those struggles she looks at me at times and she cannot imagine what that's like. I think we have a lot of people who just don't know because they haven't endured that. They can't imagine what it's like to be a single parent of four and have to worry about how you're going to feed your children."