Schools Provide Support To Students Facing First Weekend At Emergency Shelter

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The 70 or so children who have spent this week with their families and others at a local shelter face their first weekend away from the place they once called home.

The situation is certainly not ideal, but Vance County Schools Superintendent Dr. Cindy Bennett told WIZS News earlier Friday that district staff has put together some activities for the children to help get through the next couple of days when they’re not in school and things are far from “normal.”

“For the weekend, we are providing totes with art supplies, reading materials, board games and indoor/outdoor physical education items,” Bennett said.

On Monday, about 40 families moved to a shelter that was set up in the gym on the former campus of Eaton Johnson Middle School.
They had been extended-stay residents at a hotel located on Parham Road – some for longer than a year.

Earlier this week, Henderson Mayor Melissa Elliott said she was encouraged to see the community support as churches, schools and city and county leaders have rallied to create a caring network for the families who had to move to the shelter.

Henderson City Manager Terrell Blackmon said the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services is in charge of the shelter, with the cooperation of Vance County. The city’s role is limited and one of support to NCDHSS and other agencies in charge, Blackmon explained. “Our role at this point is to be an advocate for the families and to ensure that the motel remains closed for occupancy until the owners mitigate the violations at the property and bring it into compliance with the state building code.”

The city issued a zoning violation in addition to various fire code violations, Blackmon said, the majority of which are related to the state building code, which falls under the county inspections department.

The circumstances have been challenging, to be sure, but Bennett said that the district has worked to provide food, transportation and more to the children who attend Vance County Schools and their families.

“All of the VCS students who are staying in the shelter are still attending school- we have rerouted our buses to ensure they are picked up and delivered back to the shelter each day,” Bennett said in an email.

Members of the district’s Students Services team members are helping the shelter to get the children off to school in the morning and to greet them up on their return in the afternoon, she said.

The Student Behavioral Health Team is working with parents to identify new clothing that has been donated for the children, and breakfast and lunch are provided at no charge each day.

“Students who are displaced are identified as McKinney-Vento and additional resources are being added when needed.  The district has also had a social worker, nurse and counselor at the shelter each day this week to support the families and help connect them with community resources,” Bennett explained.

“We are there to support in any way we can,” Blackmon said of the city’s response to the situation. But, he added, “the services currently most needed by these families at the shelter are provided by the state, county and local nonprofit agencies.”

 

One Man Arrested On Drug Charges; Cocaine, Heroin, Fentanyl And Guns Seized

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-information courtesy of Henderson Police Chief Marcus Barrow

On May 09, 2024 the Henderson Police Department and Vance County Sheriff’s Office served two narcotic search warrants at 561 McBorn St. and 394 South Lake Lodge Rd., Lot 3.

During the service of both warrants, approximately 192 grams of cocaine, 63 grams of heroin, 101 grams of Fentanyl, drug manufacturing equipment and two firearms were seized.

Keylan Douglas Johnson, 31, was arrested in relation to the investigation. Johnson was on pretrial release at the time of the arrest, Barrow said.

Johnson was charged with three counts of trafficking heroin, one count of trafficking cocaine, one count of possession with intent to manufacture, sell, deliver schedule II, one count of manufacturing schedule I, one count of manufacturing cocaine, one count of possession with intent to manufacture, sell, deliver heroin, one count of possession with intent to manufacture, sell, deliver cocaine, three counts of maintaining a dwelling place for a controlled substance, one count of  possession of marijuana paraphernalia, one count of possession of drug paraphernalia, not marijuana, two counts of firearm by felon and one count of possession of a weapon of mass destruction.

Johnson received no bond and was remanded to the Vance County Detention Center until his next court date.

A.R. Perry Inc. Named Chamber’s 2023 Small Business Of The Year

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Over its more than 100 years, A.R. Perry, Inc. has provided vital services to the community and its residents. First established to repair Corbitt buggies and farm equipment, it went through a period that handled scrap metal and more before evolving into a glass repair and replacement service.

Of the many employees that have worked at Perry Glass (as many locals know it), owner Richard Davis said there have been 8 sets of brothers, 4 sets of sisters, 5 sets of fathers and sons, 3 sets of mothers and daughters, 3 sets of mothers and sons, and 2 sets of fathers, sons and daughters.

Gives new meaning to a family-operated business, doesn’t it?

But since Davis’s grandfather, A.R. Perry, first set up shop in Henderson, there have only been 2 married couples who have worked together. One of those couples is Richard and Mariana Davis.

They joined other Chamber of Commerce members and board representatives at a luncheon, during which A.R. Perry Inc. was named 2023 Small Business of the Year.

Chamber Board Chair Margier White introduced the winner, calling it a company that provides “top-notch glass products and installation,” as well as commercial oxygen for welding.

Perry and his brother-in-law were the only employees when they launched their business, but the company creates lasting personal relationships with its customers in the local area and beyond to keep the company vibrant.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Perry Glass installed countless plexiglass and glass protection barriers throughout the community – often free or at-cost. And it’s not unusual for Davis himself to answer “glass emergencies” nights and weekends.

The company volunteers throughout the community to provide their professional services to make repairs or to donate to local events. The Davises are very involved in various aspects of their church, The Church of the Holy Innocents and are instrumental in the upkeep and preservation of historic St. John’s Episcopal Church in Williamsboro.

In remarks at the awards ceremony, Davis said it’s an “extreme honor” to be recognized as the Small Business of the Year.

It hasn’t always been easy, he said. In fact, it has taken lots of work to stay viable. “There are some tough days – years – in a business like this,” he said.

“I’m here because all of you are here,” Davis said. He recalled the heyday in Henderson – when like textile mills and Rose’s Stores kept smaller companies like Perry Glass busy. “They fed us business – from all over the state and all over the Southeast…that’s what Henderson people did – they took care of their own,” he said of those big corporations that called Henderson home.

Today, you’ll find A.R. Perry in the Mobile community of Henderson. But when it was in the scrap metal business, there also was some property on Ruin Creek Road, Davis said.

In those days, there were no fences to keep people out – or inventory in, he said. “People would come in and get pieces of iron, pieces of cars,” and then bring them back to Davis’s Uncle Vernon.

He knew where the scrap had come from, Davis said. But, “he’d always buy it back from them.”

TownTalk: Beard Discusses Rural Health Care

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Maria Parham Health CEO Bert Beard said the state of health care in this area is in a pretty good spot these days. That doesn’t mean that rural hospitals like Maria Parham don’t continue to face challenges, but Beard said hospitals in other markets are facing some of the same things.

Beard was a guest on Thursday’s TownTalk to discuss some of the trends that he’s seeing from his vantage point.

Medicaid expansion, he said, is allowing more uninsured or under-insured residents access to health care. The number of new enrollees is about half a million, approaching the prediction of about 600,000 in North Carolina.

“We’re lagging a bit in Vance County,” he said, but health care professionals at MPH as well as Granville Vance Public Health and others are always looking for new enrollees.

With rising costs and the constant demand to find qualified health care employees, Beard said the Medicaid expansion “has given us a lifeline that we desperately needed.”

Beard said he and his colleagues knew hospitals were headed down a path to a health care provider shortage, but the COVID-19 pandemic hastened that process. Without adequate staff, some small hospitals simply couldn’t afford to keep the doors open, which only brings more challenges to the rural areas they serve.

“Services are going away that are vital,” he said. One of those is maternal services. It’s critical that expectant moms be within, say, an hour of a hospital that provides those services, for the safety of the mom and the child.

When he spoke at the April 23 “state of health care” forum sponsored by the Henderson-Vance County Chamber of Commerce, Beard said top on people’s minds was the mental health crisis that is so often in the news.

He looks forward to the Emergency Department’s Safe Space project that has received funding and said it will transform how patients in crisis can be managed when they come through the Emergency Department.

Mental health issues are multi-dimensional and under-resourced, Beard said, noting that psychological issues are often entangled in social issues and substance abuse, which exacerbate the problem.

“We’ve got to be more deliberate in how we invest in that,” he said. Public-private partnerships like MPH behavioral health services in Louisburg is something that Beard said he is quite proud of.

Whether through collaboration or providing quality health care by Duke physicians and others, Maria Parham is poised to keep patients across the region it serves top of mind when it comes to community care.

It must be a mutually supportive relationship, however, Beard said. When you seek care, seek local care first.

“It’s more important than ever,” he said, that “when people have good available local health care, that they choose it – the alternative is that health care goes away if it’s not supported locally.”

“We’re working every day to get better every day. That comes with a mutually supportive relationship with our community.”

CLICK PLAY!

 

Perry Memorial Library

The Local Skinny! Events At Perry Library

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Make plans now to take part in the Summer Reading Program kickoff at Perry Memorial Library – summer sounds far away, but it’ll be here before you know it! And Melody Peters and others at the library are ready to help readers young and not-so young find time to dive into a good book.

The reading program, “Adventure Begins at Your Library,” kicks off Tuesday, June 18 from 4 to 6pm. and there’s something for all ages, Peters said on Tuesday’s The Local Skinny!

There will be reading logs available to help readers keep track and earn badges and prizes for different levels of achievement throughout the summer, Peters said. But it’s not just for how many pages you can read, she added. “’We’ve gotten really creative…to keep everyone engaged over the summer and avoid the Summer Slide.”

Added bonus to the kickoff event: The first 200 people to show up get a Pelican Snoball free!

If recent program successes are any indication, the summer program will be another one “for the books” – pun intended.

The most popular program from last year involved some visitors from the Vance County Animal Shelter and Peters said she’s happy to report that some furry friends will return to the library on Tuesday, June 25 for a special program.

In advance of this visit, the library has placed a donation bin to collect items for the shelter animals. Food, toys, bedding, kitty litter – whatever you’d like to bring, the shelter will appreciate, Peters said. “We hope we can hand them what we’ve collected that day,” she said.

Another successful event was the tea party and book sale, which  drew 60 people to the library – on a Sunday, Peters said. “Everybody was blown away,” she said. The Friends of the Library sold some books, too. Peters said she plans to make this an annual event, thanks to the positive response.

She’s heard from some library patrons that sometimes it’s just too tough to get to programs during the week, so the library is going to roll out a Family Story Time in the summer for those families who go in many different directions in the course of a normal weekday.

She’s planning to have one in June and one in July on a Sunday at 3:30 p.m. – that way, it will be after church and lunch and before dinner and getting ready for the work week again.

“We’re trying it out and we’ll see how it goes,” Peters said.

Visit https://www.perrylibrary.org/ to learn about the different programs and activities offered at the library.

CLICK PLAY!

 

Life Safety Aspect Results in City Shutting Down Hotel

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City, county and state leaders determined Monday that power to Hotel 121 on Parham Road will be cut no later than 4 p.m. Tuesday in response to various public health and structural safety issues, displacing 40 families including 70 children and 58 adults, which has set off a groundswell of support for both short-term needs and sheltering as well as efforts to overcome what will be a months-long housing issue.

The Henderson City Council held a special called meeting Monday at 10 a.m., and before going into closed session, it became clear that issues with the hotel facility including zoning violations, lack of extended stay permits and code violations had left the City of Henderson feeling it had few options but to step in.

At the time of the 10 a.m. meeting, Mayor Melissa Elliott said the families were packing what they could and that multiple levels of government, including Vance County in particular, were working to open a shelter in the gym at what is known as the former “Eaton Johnson Middle School.”

City Manager Terrell Blackmon said, “The way we are mobilizing by getting them out of a bad health and safety situation was our first priority.”

Elliott said, “You know we are a resilient community that’s working together and that’s what’s happening right now.”

Councilperson Lamont Noel asked about how the families are taking this, and the mayor said, “The families are in crisis.” Elliott said she appeared before some of the residents to let them know the city didn’t want to kick them out but wanted them to be safe. She said she went to let people know the board, or council, cared about them.

The mayor said 80 percent of the folks moving have jobs but can’t get ahead because they are paying rent on a daily basis. “They are paying $2,000 a month,” she said, “to stay in a hotel.”

The county, the schools, a group of local pastors, Franklin-Granville-Vance Partnership for Children, the Granville Vance Public Health Department and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services are helping to secure the short-term shelter, long-term housing, funding sources for rent assistance as well as food, cloths, transportation and solutions for basic needs as a lot of the families’ possessions have has been exposed to black mold and bed bugs.

The city was able to dig in and get more involved after an awning at the facility fell April 22. That event set off a series of meetings, conversations and more that, as soon as the next day on April 23, had the city exploring its options. But, when people from the city showed up Friday, May 3 with emergency housing applications and more, that’s when the residents – many of them long term rather than nightly guests – found out for the first time the location was being closed down. The owners of the property nor their management had told the residents about the closing, some of whom have been residing there more than a year, according to the mayor and other council members and staff at the special called meeting.

Elliott talked about what happened earlier Monday morning with the assistant manager of the hotel. She said, “They have called in an electrical person. They came out yesterday. And they will have an engineer there tomorrow. His plea still is of course ‘don’t turn the power off because it’s going to be hard for them to do the work.’

“Although this place is egregious to say the least, he did allow the people to stay another day so we can get this shelter ready. And I also told him we want them to have business in our community, but we want them to do it the right way.

“You don’t even have to go in a room to see the damage because a lot of the cracked concrete, the walkways, the stairs, and if you walk past the windows, the rooms are full of furniture, some of them are full of black mold, you can see the bed bugs. You don’t even have to go in a room,” Elliott said.

She questioned how county inspectors had not seen this.  She said, “This stuff is visual … a lot of it is outside.”

By piggybacking off the Henderson Fire Department, Code Compliance Director Corey Willams said, and by using the “life safety aspect of things,” Fire Chief Tim Twisdale told WIZS by phone, the city can cut the power. By cutting the power, it requires the owner to have to go back and have more complete inspections, pull permits for electrical and other renovations, and it just generally, according to Police Chief Marcus Barrow, puts the facility back to square one.

Williams spoke of code and zoning issues. He described to the council a process that would be gone through and which later could be brought back to the council for a final decision.

Twisdale said the structural stability of things “is what has us the most concerned,” when speaking with WIZS News.

Even while the city’s special meeting continued in closed session, WIZS reached out to Lisa Harrison, Granville Vance Public Health Director. She said, “On a response call with state and local resources at the moment. Heartened by community and state level responses. (The) Environmental Health team has been out a number of times. We are helping Mayor Elliot who is coordinating re-housing efforts for families.”

“Pest control challenges and mold is a common issue in local facilities,” Harrison said.

Vance County Manager Renee Perry said, “We are coordinating efforts with the city, county, and state partners to provide shelter at the old Eaton Johnson Middle School gym. (The) County’s role is to provide emergency management solutions per NCGS 166A.”

“We are seeking mutual aid from other counties to provide other resources such as portable showers, blankets, cots, etcetera,” Perry said.

The children impacted will be able to continue to go to school.

Legal issues could follow, according to Blackmon.

Councilperson Geraldine Champion said, “If that particular place is doing this … How many other hotels may be doing the exact thing without a permit?”

Councilperson Michael Venable said, “There had to be some negligence somewhere too on these inspections. How did that building get to that place … it didn’t happen overnight.”

Williams said he understood county inspectors had been limited to inspecting the rooms used daily as hotel rooms. He said the rest of the rooms had been blocked out for long-term stays and those had not been looked at.

Wreck on I-85, Driver Ejected, Car Rolls Over Multiple Times

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From the Henderson Police Department:

On Thursday around 12:25 a.m., a motor vehicle collision involving a 2020 Dodge Charger and a 2011 Ford SUV occurred on I-85 South near the 214 mile maker. Both vehicles were traveling south on I-85 when a Dodge Charger collided with the rear of a Ford SUV.

The collision caused the Ford SUV to leave the roadway to the right until coming to rest in the wood line. The driver was ejected from the vehicle.

The Charger rolled over numerous times before coming to rest in the roadway.

The driver of the Ford SUV sustained injuries and was taken to an area hospital for treatment.

The driver of the Dodge, Kassidy Edwards, 20, of Henderson was arrested and charged with Driving While Impaired, Reckless Driving, and Felony Serious Injury by Vehicle. She received a secured bond of $4,000 and was released after posting bond.

The North Carolina State Highway Patrol is assisting with the investigation.

— from a press release