Category: COMMUNITY

BY SALEM SOLOMON
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – They grew up in the same St. Petersburg household, but at first glance sisters Lynae and Ramona Brayboy couldn’t be more different.

Lynae, 33, pursued a career in medicine and couldn’t wait to get away from a place she considered limiting in many ways. “It would have been a lot harder for me to become what I am today staying in St. Petersburg,” she said.

Lynae attended a local religious school, Keswick Christian High School, where she remembers encounters that were “very racist, mean and rude.” Eventually, she came to view education as her way out. Opportunities were scarce and “a lot of us who were interested in science, there wasn’t much for us in St. Petersburg,” she said.

This go-getter attitude would take her to college at Florida A&M University to earn a bachelor’s degree in biology in 2002 and then to Temple University, where she earned a degree as a doctor of medicine in 2007.

Ramona, 27, took a different path. She graduated with honors from St. Petersburg Catholic and then earned a bachelor’s degree in international business from Florida International University.

However, she chose to stay in her hometown. She married her teenage crush, Damon Reio, and they work side by side – she in a beauty salon, he in a fitness center – in a building her parents own on St. Petersburg’s historic 22nd Street S. Her clients come from all over town.

“People like to leave and they get their claim to fame once they got out of St. Pete,” she said. “But I think there is anew movement of people here that embraces St. Pete as paradise and want to make it great.”

Despite their differences, the Brayboy sisters share the determination and work ethic of two women who figured prominently in their early years.

It was their mother, Carolyn Brayboy, who demanded that her daughters succeed in school and aim high in their ambitions. And it was their beloved grandmother, Mary Brayboy Jones, who opened her home to them and nurtured them through childhood.

Carolyn, the daughter of sharecroppers who never graduated from high school, wanted a better life for her children. She came to St. Petersburg when she was in sixth grade because at the age of 11 or 12, she said, her family’s landowner asked her mother, “Isn’t it time to take that girl out of school so she can work in the fields?”

Her mother decided to come to Florida to visit an uncle during Christmas and stayed.

One of the first African-American students to attend St. Petersburg Junior College, Carolyn earned a bachelor’s degree and MBA and worked for 39 years at IBM.

Now, in her “retirement,” she and her husband are spending $800,000 to buy and restore old buildings along 22nd Street S, called “The Deuces” when it was the main street of the black community in the days of segregation. It is a daunting task.

The matriarch of the family and the girls’ grandmother, the late Mary Brayboy Jones, was a trailblazer in her own right. She was a registered nurse for 42 years who worked at Mercy Hospital on 22nd Street S during the segregation era. She later worked at Mound Park Hospital (now Bayfront Health) and Eckerd College post-segregation.

“During Lynae’s childhood in the medical clinic,” began her father, Elihu Brayboy. “Lynae spent a lot of time playing nurse and being around the doctors,” Carolyn added, finishing his sentence. They said that Lynae wanted to be a doctor when she was 8.

The grandparents played an integral role in the children’s lives. “[Jones] also helped us raising Lynae and Ramona,” said Carolyn. “Here we are newlyweds; we didn’t know how to raise children. My mother did the laundry and his mother did the cooking. They told us that ‘all you had to do is work.’”

Originally from the small town of Bertrandville, La., Jones also catered meals for the African-American community. “I was the only child but she cooked like she was cooking for 10 people,” said Elihu Brayboy.

“Her willingness to share the food is kind of how it started, word of mouth. People would come and ask, ‘Ms. Jones, can you do me a Christmas cake?’ or ‘Would you do our Thanksgiving dinner?’ That’s how her intimate friends around the city asked.”

Over time, Jones began to cater to musicians who came to town because of a family friend who was a promoter.  She catered for the O’Jays, Teddy Pendergrass, Earth Wind and Fire, and others, the Brayboys said. “But these were the names that were consistent repeats.”

Elihu and Carolyn Brayboy recently opened Chief’s Creole Café at 903 22nd St. S, where they continue Jones’ tradition of hard work and Southern cooking.

Although the sisters cherish their family memories, St. Petersburg means very different things to them.

Despite her unhappy memories as a schoolgirl in St. Petersburg, Lynae – the doctor – said there were some positive aspects. “There was a program that I liked in St. Pete, a program called the McKnight program. It was one way I had access to black culture. It was a program for middle and high schoolers, and being in that program allowed me to meet black kids who are also academically strong,” she said.

Her academic achievements enabled her to travel the world. She went to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic for a Spanish language immersion program and a year-long biomedical research at the University of Mali in West Africa on a Fulbright scholarship where she made use of the French she learned in high school.

In Mali, she met a man whom she would later marry and who would become the father of her daughter. Her husband “came to the States and didn’t like the culture and so they divorced,” said Carolyn. This meant that she had to build her career as a single mother.

Lynae currently works as a physician in Providence, R.I., in the Division of Reproduction and Infertility at Women & Infants Hospital. She is a three-year fellow there and has been awarded a Physician Scientist Award to participate in the Reproductive Scientist Development Program, a national career development program for reproductive physician-scientists based in academic institutions. She began the program in July.

Ramona, on the other hand, sees a bright future for herself and her family in St. Petersburg.

“It’s nothing like it was when I was growing up so; it’s a new day and I represent the beauty of this age,” she said.

Fresh out of college, she said, finding a job was almost impossible. Her solution was to pursue her passion for fashion and take training at Aveda Institute, a beauty school with branches across the nation including one in St. Petersburg.

Today, she tries to break the lingering effects of segregation by serving a diverse group of customers. “The majority, say 80 percent, of my clientele is Caucasian. I do have great love for all hair textures, especially, of course, mine,” she said.

Her husband, Damon Reio, shares the sentiment. “What we do is not specific to the African community; it is about broadening out and giving everyone an opportunity to see what 22nd Street is all about,” he said.

Reio is a grandson of Omali Yeshitela, the founder of the Uhuru Movement, an organization based in St. Petersburg that pushes for an end to what it calls the oppression of African people.

The fitness center and beauty salon strive to have a diverse clientele. This is something that their grandmother instilled as a family value.

“People would come by and ask what medication to take or ask her to check their blood pressure; she was the medical liaison,” Lynae said. “My grandmother helped a lot of women in St. Petersburg. I only found out at her funeral that she used to deliver babies for couples who couldn’t afford the hospital, and I never knew that.”

Jones died on Sept. 13, 2005. “It’s sad that she is not here to see that I finally got to where I am,” said Lynae. “I gave up being close with her, to be able to do all of this.”

It has been 10 ten years since their grandmother’s passing. But the journey for the Brayboy daughters and the rest of the family has come full circle.

When Jones died, they couldn’t fly to Louisiana because of Hurricane Katrina. However, on Dec. 20 the family held a formal memorial for Jones in Louisiana to celebrate the life and legacy of their beloved matriarch.

BY SALEM SOLOMON
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – Seated in her bright office with sunshine streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows, Vicki Krueger stared at two computer monitors.

On one, a live webinar being filmed next door showed the image of a reporter and a host talking about “Interviewing: The Art of the Two-Way Conversation.” Questions from an online audience around the world popped up second by second.

On the other, Krueger, 53, was receiving a flurry of emails about an afternoon meeting with the marketing department of her employer, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. The Poynter is a nonprofit school for journalism.

“I have 4,000 unread emails in my inbox. There’s a lot of triage every day,” she said. On a giant white board she managed a complex, color-coded schedule for Poynter classes the rest of the year.

It was a busy day. Her head was still buzzing from a morning meeting with the institute’s board of trustees.

“They are the Poynter’s governing board; they come quarterly and they get updates on a bunch of different stuff,” she said. “I usually have two to five minutes on a couple of initiatives that we’re doing at NewsU.”

NewsU is an online learning platform for professional journalists, educators and those who are interested in the craft of journalism. Krueger said that her role is to be the digital bridge and help “traditional journalists, mainstream media or legacy media” understand the world of digital media.

This, said Krueger, is vitally important as journalism migrates online and journalists are asked to master a wide variety of tasks including social media, multimedia and other skills. Journalists today can’t afford to define themselves only as scribes or broadcasters.

“You just don’t know what the world will look like in 10 or 20 years, so just do what’s interesting and turn it into something,” she said.  “I think the best journalists are lifelong learners.”

NewsU helps journalists prepare for the future in a shifting environment. Founded by Howard Finberg in 2005, NewsU now offers 300 courses on everything from old-fashioned reporting to newfangled multimedia techniques. It boasts more than 250,000 registered users, including about 15 percent from outside North America.

“We want to leverage the power of the Internet so that people can have access on-demand, and we know that people are used to learning online so we want to make it as available as possible,” Krueger said. “One of the important roles that we play with e-learning is to be a resource or a library so that they can come back and have access.”

Krueger earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern University. Early in her career, she never imagined a job like hers would exist.

She moved to Florida in 1987-1988 from Indiana with her husband, Curtis. They met at the Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, where she was a copy editor and he was a reporter. She says that Curtis knew one of the first things he needed to know is that copy editors are serious about spelling people’s names right.

She joked that if “you misspell my name, I will break your leg.” Curtis overheard and asked, “So, you’d break my leg, huh?”

“So, that’s how we met – by threatening to break his leg,” she said. They have been together since 1988. “We were one of five couples to meet and marry from that newsroom,” she said.

She worked for five years on the copy desk at the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times). He still works there, covering Pinellas County courts.

Following maternity leave, she asked Poynter if there was something she could offer because of her background in copy editing and love of working in a newsroom. Krueger’s work at Poynter started with part-time copy editing.

She edited books between 1993 to 2004, including memoirs and spirituality books. As her two sons grew older, she said, her work “evolved with their little lives.” Pictures of Jimmy, 21, and Jackson, 19, are displayed in a corner of her office.

Soon enough, she would start working through Poynter’s high school program, which brought in working journalists as consultants to area high school newspapers.

“There was a makeup composition room down at Poynter and the kids could come and print out their stories, and they could paste everything up and then they would take it and print it,” she said. “Poynter has had a long history in investing in the scholastic press.”

Krueger understands the importance of building relationships in a learning environment and that translates to her online interaction. She acknowledges that transforming from in-person teaching to an online platform is a challenge.

She said that in itself is a process and educators have to think about how to make it “relevant, practical and engaging online because if it’s boring, people will tune out.” Making it relevant comes naturally for Krueger, a gregarious extrovert with a boisterous laugh that fills a room.

Dr. Casey Frechette, assistant professor in the Journalism and Media Studies Department at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg and an adjunct teacher at the Poynter Institute, worked with Krueger for about 10 years before moving to USFSP full time. He said that “in many ways, Vicki is the ideal colleague. She’s generous in sharing her knowledge, but she’s always eager to learn more.”

Parallel to her personal experience, the Poynter.org website evolved over time. More specifically, the turning point for the institute’s online learning offerings came after Sept. 11.

The site gained relevance and a wider audience because the institute “realized what it had and being able to help journalists around the country and around the world do better journalism,” she said.

Telling stories about the events during the terror attacks that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and getting the coverage of its aftermath in these communities right was important, she said. “I think, at that point, Poynter realized that it had a website that can reach journalists,” she said. The website started gaining traction as a resource for journalists.

The Poynter Institute was founded as the Modern Media Institute in 1975 by Nelson Poynter, the principal owner of the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times). Poynter wanted to ensure that his beloved newspaper would remain private, independent and locally owned when he died, so in his will he stipulated that the majority of his stock in the paper would pass to the institute.

Six years after Poynter died in 1978, the institute was renamed in his honor, and in 1985 it moved into a gleaming new building at 801 Third St. S.

For years, the institute thrived, its finances buoyed by multimillion-dollar annual dividends from the Times. In the last decade, however, the Great Recession, the digital age, and changes in the habits of readers and advertisers have devastated metropolitan newspapers like the Times.

In recent years, the Times has dramatically slashed its staff, sold several pieces of property and two affiliated publications, given up the naming rights to the ice hockey and entertainment arena in Tampa, and three times cut employees’ pay.

The newspaper is no longer a viable source of support for Poynter, which in response has created a fund-raising arm, shaken up its teaching program and entered a non-binding agreement to sell property next to its building to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg for $6.2 million.

In November, Poynter announced that it lost $3.5 million in 2013 and expects to have another loss at the end of 2014. Poynter lost $1.7 million in 2012 and $3.8 million in 2011, according to public documents.

Despite the grim numbers, e-learning at Poynter is thriving.  Finberg said the future of NewsU “is going to be brighter than it is today. And with new technologies, with new methods, new kind of classes, I think that you’ll see that it will continue to grow.”

Krueger is at the forefront of this growth.  NewsU must strive to meet users’ needs while staying affordable.

“That’s why we try to keep our prices low. We need to make the money to keep the lights on, but we don’t want to price it so much so people can’t access it,” she said.

Some of the webinars and self-directed courses, for instance, are free courses while others have price tags ranging from as low as $25 per course or module to over $500. The courses span from one hour to weeks-long skills training seminars. Users have to sign up for an account, but that means they will have ample access to materials produced by respected journalists.

Krueger says beyond understanding what the audience wants through e-learning, NewsU will always have content “that will be cutting edge, that will not necessarily drive much revenue” but will always keep Poynter true to its mission: A leader in journalism training.

Information from jimromenesko.com, the Tampa Bay Times and the Tampa Tribune was used in this report.

BY JULIET MORALES
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – One is a visual artist who has been drawing since he was a toddler decorating the walls of his family home.

The other is a rapper who finds inspiration at every turn, jotting down ideas and lines on an ever-present notepad.

Will Kuncz and Hagan Lee are not exactly kindred spirits, but both were featured in November at an event called “Bridging the Gap” at Sly Bar at 2061 Central Ave. in St. Petersburg’s Midtown district.

The event is the brainchild of Tiffany Taylor, 26, an event planner who works to bring together visual and performance artists from both sides of the Howard Frankland Bridge.

“I’ve never seen someone try to unite artists from different areas together,” she said. “I think it’s very important in St. Pete because we try to keep everything local, we try to keep artists working together.”

Taylor calls her endeavor Rose Gold Creations, so named because “my grandmother’s favorite flowers were roses and I happen to love rose gold.”

At first, Rose Gold Creations was a brand name to showcase her photography and other creative projects.

“It has turned into a bigger picture than just that,” she said. “Midtown is an up and coming area in St. Pete, and I really wanted to show people a new area of St. Pete that is blossoming.”

Kuncz, 30, a visual artist from Largo who now lives in St. Petersburg, said his fascination with art started early.

“My mom used to let me draw on the walls in the house when I was a toddler so I guess I was kind of born into it,” he said. “I was pretty introverted as a kid so I’d spent a lot of time drawing. I started to take it seriously, though, when I was in my early 20s as something I’d like to pursue as something more than a hobby.”

Kuncz, who said he gets his inspiration to create art from people, uses marker, ink pen and acrylic on everything from wood fencing to aluminum foil.

“Finding a style is hard and easy at the same time,” he said. “You start by battling yourself and experimenting with a set goal of trying to find a new way of doing things.

“Once you stop pressuring yourself and start to let go, I found that it just started to flow.”

Lee, 31, is part of a rap group called Mickey Spixx. He said writing is something he feels he can do anywhere, but the best place to write is in the studio, where he can bounce ideas off people.

“It’s always different; sometimes I’ll be at the house with my headphones in. Sometimes I’ll be at work,” he said.

“Sometimes the moment will strike (and) I’ll get certain lines or ideas and concepts and I’ll write those down. There’s just a bunch of sporadic things I have on my notepad.”

If you go
The next “Bridging the Gap” will be at Sly Bar, 2061 Central Ave., on Jan. 26. It will feature hip-hop artists, spoken-word performers, jewelry artisans, painters and live graffiti art.

BY CHANEL WILLIAMS
NNB Student Reporter

TAMPA – Behind a stack of newspapers piled high on the desk is a petite woman gazing at a computer screen. Her long, dark-brown hair is placed behind her ear so she can hear news reports from Bay News 9 on her small TV. The only other sound in the room is the clicking of the keyboard as she types.

“It’s my responsibility to ensure that the community is educated on the congresswoman’s agenda and policies,” said Marcia Mejia, 34, the press secretary for Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat who represents Florida’s 14th Congressional District.

The district covers a swath of Hillsborough County from Tampa’s Town ‘n’ Country neighborhood to Sun City Center plus the southeastern portion of St. Petersburg. Castor, first elected in 2006, is serving her fifth term. She is the first woman to represent Hillsborough and Pinellas in Congress.

It’s a slow day at the office for Mejia because of the Thanksgiving holidays. She just finished organizing a press conference for the opening of a business center for female entrepreneurs that is named for Helen Gordon Davis, who served nearly two decades in the Florida Legislature.

Now she is finalizing details for Castor’s role in honoring John Wilson, who is retiring after 50 years in TV broadcasting, the last 33 in Tampa Bay. The congresswoman will be one of the bay area leaders to appear in a video tribute to Wilson on Fox 13 News, and she will enter a tribute to Wilson in the Congressional Record.

Mejia plays a leading role in managing Castor’s social media. She uploads articles and invitations to community events and maintains engagements among constituents. It is her responsibility to monitor newspapers for coverage of the congresswoman and issues she supports, such as immigration reform.

Mejia grew up in Tampa but moved to Orlando for college. While finishing bachelor’s degrees in both political science and journalism at the University of Central Florida, she began a countrywide job hunt.

“I applied everywhere,” she said. “I was ready to move wherever I was offered a job.”

The hundreds of applications led to an offer to become a reporter for a small Kansas newspaper, the Dodge City Daily Globe. But the job was put on hold because her father was terminally ill. She moved back to Tampa to help take care of him and became a clerk in the Hillsborough County supervisor of elections office.

It would be the first in a series of positions that Mejia would hold in government communications.

“It was supposed to be temporary; I always thought I would return to journalism,” Mejia said.

After a year, Mejia became a public information officer at Tampa International Airport. She was there for only a few months before becoming a public information representative for Hillsborough County in 2003.

In three years, she was promoted to community relations coordinator. Mejia was responsible for writing speeches for elected officials, working with county departments to disseminate positive information via media, and coordinating large-scale events such as ground-breaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

In 2010, Mejia joined the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) as a public information officer, a positive she held for three years before deciding to move on.

“I was a small fish in a big pond at HART,” she said. “There were no advancements because of the poor economy at the time, and I needed something new.”

In 2013, the press secretary position for Castor came open. Mejia saw the opportunity as perfect timing.

“I had seen her (Castor) around at different community events, so it helped when I applied because I was a familiar face,” she said. Mejia was hired in January 2013.
“She is great and we are blessed to have her,” said Chloe Coney, Castor’s district director.

Mejia’s Colombian heritage is beneficial at the office because she is able to translate for non-English constituents who seek assistance. But Mejia is not the only staff member fluent in Spanish. Tanya Fernandez and Terry Sanchez assist with constituents facing immigrations issues.

Castor’s district office also features Thomas Gay, who assists with veterans; Vito Sheeley, the staff outreach director; staff assistant Wendy Hamilton; and deputy district director Julie Fitzpatrick.

Mejia was four months pregnant when she began working at the congresswoman’s district office. “It’s a challenge being a new mom, but having my husband work from home makes it much easier for me,” Mejia said.

Mejia’s hours extend beyond 9 to 5. When she wakes up in the morning, the first thing she does is check the newspapers to see if there is any coverage of the congresswoman.

“I’m coming up on my two-year anniversary,” she said. “Working here is my dream job.”

BY CHANEL WILLIAMS
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – For Antwaun Wells, life is all about investing in the community and serving others.

“My personal take on your life is, if you’re not doing anything good for yourself or anybody else, then you are good for nothing,” Wells said. “I want to be known as someone who is good for something.”

In a typical week, the 39-year-old St. Petersburg native is good for a lot.

On weekdays, he’s up at 6 a.m. and off to his job as assistant superintendent for LEMA Construction, which is building a three-story Midtown Center for St. Petersburg College at 1300 22nd St. S. The 45,000-square-foot building, three blocks south of SPC’s current quarters, is scheduled for completion in the spring.

Since 2002, Wells has been project manager for Wells Builder LLC. He and his brother Kevin, the company’s owner, have done restoration projects in Midtown – including Gallerie 909 and Chief’s Creole Café – and building projects and restoration jobs elsewhere in the county.

Earlier this year, Wells joined Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas County as supervisor of its new Mercy-Midtown Neighborhood Preservation Partnership. The partnership works with homeowners who live in the 22nd Street S corridor with home repairs, energy efficiency upgrades and landscaping.

On weekends and sometimes in the evenings, Wells can be found at the Esquire Barber Shop in Midtown, where he is a master barber.

And on Sundays, he helps run the Deuces Live Sunday Market, which he serves as treasurer, then goes down the block about 5 p.m. for spoken-word performances at Gallerie 909.

“The Deuces” is the nickname for 22nd Street S, which was the main street for St. Petersburg’s black community during the days of segregation and discrimination from the 1920s until the late 1960s.

When he’s not tied up in his everyday commitments, Wells mentors and tutors students. He said he got the idea from his own former mentor, retired teacher Jim Oliver, who took note of how Wells talks to youngsters and encourage them to do well in school while cutting their hair.

Two years ago, Wells said, he got certified to mentor students at schools in the local area.  He started at Melrose Elementary in 2012 and expanded to John Hopkins Middle, and Lakewood and Gibbs high schools.

After Wells spoke at Gibbs’ Great American Teach-In – an annual event that brings in professionals to talk about their jobs – the school’s mentor adviser, Aby Figueroa, asked him to come more regularly.

“The way he treats the kids and how they respond back to him is amazing,” Figueroa said. “He is a good example for them.”

Wells is mentoring two 15-year-old students at Gibbs – Wayne Atkins and Bill Baptiste. He meets with them for an hour each Monday to talk about building self-confidence and managing their time.

“I learned a lot from our session,” Bill said after a recent meeting with Wells. “Staying busy means you’re never bored.” Since he began his meetings with Wells, he said, he has joined the baseball team and ROTC at Gibbs and a church band.

“He is very nice and helpful. He has taught me how to use my time and say no to people,” said Wayne, who at Wells’ encouragement has become a volunteer at the Campbell Park Recreation Center.

Wells said he tries to seize any opportunity to motivate children to aim high in their lives. On a recent day at the St. Petersburg College construction site, he chatted with some of the students who were walking home from school. He engaged them in small talk and asked what they had learned in class.

“These kids sometimes just need someone to talk to as well as listen, and if I can I want to be that person,” Wells said.

Since his own preteen years, Wells said, he has been a self-motivated entrepreneur. He would go through his neighborhood and wash people’s cars. Since he didn’t have the supplies at home, his neighbors trusted him to drive their cars to the car wash down the street and back.

With persistence, his business began to flourish. But that wasn’t enough for the ambitious youngster. To help his dad save money on the rising price of a haircuts, Wells said, he began to practice cutting his little brother’s hair. It was only a matter of time before Wells had a line of friends and neighbors waiting outside on the porch to get haircuts.

While running his side business, Wells said, he was a member of the Gibbs High football and track teams.

Academics were always a top priority, he said, and learning came easily for him. He would have his homework done before school let out, and he was an honor roll student and helped tutor peers.

During summer vacations, Wells said, he would take free classes at Florida State University while visiting his aunt in Tallahassee. Back home, he took similar courses at Eckerd College.

After graduating from Gibbs, he studied electronic engineering at DeVry University in Atlanta, then returned home in 2007 determined to give back to the community that helped raise him.

“It’s time for my generation … to bring it back,” he said.

A determination to inspire runs deep in Wells’ family. His great-great-grandmother, Idella Barton Jones, founded the Church of God by Faith at 2850 Freemont Terrace S. His grandmother, Johnnie Lee Williams, eventually took over the church, which was renamed All Nations Church of God by Faith, and served for 35 years. This year Williams passed the baton to Wells’ mother, Rhunette Wells. The church is now at 3000 Fourth Ave. S.

On average, Wells said, he sleeps about four hours a night.

“Rest is something I haven’t mastered yet,” he said. “It’s something I have to work on.”

BY SALEM SOLOMON
NNB Student Reporter

A catchphrase among volunteers is “think globally, act locally.” Habitat for Humanity believes it has found a way to do exactly that.

Through a program based on the Christian tenet of tithing, Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas County sets aside money each time it builds a house locally to help pay for a house in a developing country.

“Every time we build and sell a home we provide funding of about $4,500 to build a home in either Malawi, Africa, or Guatemala,” said Ron Spoor, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas County.

Founded in 1976 and championed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Habitat for Humanity builds and sells homes at no profit with a zero-interest mortgage to people who earn below a certain percentage of the area median income. In Pinellas County, the organization has built 312 homes since the local chapter began in 1985.

Local volunteers, called Habitat Global Village volunteers, visited Guatemala to build homes in 2013 and Malawi in 2014. They plan to return to Guatemala in 2015.

During the June 2014 trip to Malawi, 16 local volunteers built two family-sized homes in the remote village of Mwalama.The organization goes to great pains to make sure the work benefits the entire community and not just the recipients of the new homes, Spoor said.

The Habitat volunteers work under the supervision of local masons and carpenters, he said, and the volunteers’ donations fund the construction of the houses and the wages of the masons and carpenters.

Bricks for the homes are made from village clay, and mortar is made from clay, straw and water. All material for the walls is sourced within 50 feet of the new homes. The sturdy walls are designed to stand for 80 years.

At the end of the week of construction, the Malawian villagers held a ceremony complete with dancing and singing to dedicate the new homes. Spoor and the other volunteers conducted a ceremonial “laying hands on the homes” complete with prayers and blessings for the new homes.

Spoor said the experience was life changing. The volunteers were followed around all day by children who – despite lacking shoes and, in some cases, suffering from illnesses like AIDS or malaria – exuded joy.

“They were just great joy to interact with and to see their smiles, and to see that living a simple life, a life of poverty really, but the depth of their smiles is really amazing,” he said. “It is not forgettable. It’s a lesson for us.”

Critics have charged that the money for trips, which cost thousands of dollars per traveling volunteer, would be better spent as direct donations to local causes. Why, they ask, should wealthy Americans travel around the world to do things locals can and should be allowed to do themselves?

“Short-term volunteer projects can do more harm than good,” wrote Ian Birrell, a columnist for the British paper The Guardian. “Wealthy tourists prevent local workers from getting much-needed jobs, especially when they pay to volunteer; hard-pressed institutions waste time looking after them and money upgrading facilities; and abused or abandoned children form emotional attachments to the visitors, who increase their trauma by disappearing back home.”

The British group Voluntary Service Overseas even decried charity tourism that many college students and retirees engage in as a “new form of colonialism.”

Spoor said he can’t deny that sending American volunteers abroad might not be the most efficient way to help those in need, but it has other merits.

Since the Habitat volunteers’ donations fund both the construction and the wages of the local masons and carpenters, he said, the construction and “related infusion of money into the local economy” would not happen without the volunteers.

“One can make a very reasonable argument for not going on a trip but just sending a larger check,” he said. “But one can also make an argument for the power and the necessity of having the human connection and how important that is for all of us in the world,” Spoor said.

In the end, he said, his experience shows that the power of the interaction between people of different cultures is a value that can’t be quantified. “I think it’s great to send big checks but I also love the meaning and the depth and the power of human connection, which is life-changing,” he said.

“I would say it’s not an ‘either-or’ answer but it’s a ‘both’ answer. Maybe people should spend less money on things that are not necessary, and that would allow them to go on a trip and make generous donations.”

BY CHANEL WILLIAMS
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – Dominique Baptiste and Tamara Harrell grew up together in their grandmother’s modest house in the Midtown neighborhood.

To some people, Midtown is a bleak place blighted by urban decay, poverty and crime. But to the  sisters, it’s home.

That’s why they are grateful that Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas County helped them build side-by-side homes on 21st Avenue S, a block from the house where they grew up.

“This has been the best opportunity for me,” said Baptiste, 29, a single mother with three children. “I don’t know who’s happier – me or my kids.”

They moved into their four-bedroom, two-bath home in September, three months after Harrell, 33, and her two children moved into the three-bedroom, two-bath house next door.

Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization based on Christian principles, has been helping struggling, low-income families build houses in Pinellas since 1985. People and families who qualify are required to complete 20 homeownership preparedness courses and work 250 to 350 “sweat equity” hours alongside the Habitat volunteers who are building their homes and homes for other Habitat families.

Once a candidate has met Habitat’s requirements and the house is built, Habitat sells the house to the candidate at no profit with a zero-interest mortgage.

Harrell’s home was Habitat’s 300th new home in Pinellas. Baptiste’s was No. 309.

The completion of the two homes came as Habitat debuts a new program in the corridor bordered by Ninth and 26th avenues S between 25th and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. streets. Under the program, called the Mercy-Midtown Home Preservation Partnership, Habitat will help low-income homeowners make substantial improvements to their houses.

Following Habitat’s partnership model, homeowners are required to work 10 to 25 “sweat equity” hours alongside volunteers and contractors for work like roof replacement, plumbing and electrical repairs, painting and landscaping, upgrades in energy efficiency and modifications to help people with physical disabilities.

The homeowners will get zero-interest loans from Habitat to cover the cost of materials, with a payment schedule based on affordability.

Habitat has begun to accept applications and hopes to serve 10 homeowners in 2015.

The services supervisor for Habitat’s Midtown home preservation initiative is Antwaun Wells, 39, a building contractor, barber and civic activist who grew up in Midtown and wants to help the neighborhood rebound.

“I’m a community stakeholder, but I’m also a servant and I love impacting my community,” he said. “One of the main reasons why I’m happy to be part of the Habitat is because we are the people.”

“It is time for us to invest in the community to bring it back to speed,” he said. “My personal take on your life is, if you’re not doing anything good for yourself or anybody else, then you are good for nothing. I want to be known as someone who is good for something.”

Habitat for Humanity International was founded in 1976 on the principle that “all of God’s children ought to have a simple, decent place in which to live.” Its most famous volunteers are former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, who volunteer for Habitat for one week every year.

The Pinellas chapter of Habitat, one of more than 1,400 affiliates around the country, does not get funding from the main organization. It relies on corporate contributions, donations from individuals, and the mortgage payments of people living in Habitat-built homes. For every home built in Pinellas, a home is also built overseas.

A common misconception is that Habitat gives away free homes to low-income families. In fact, Habitat recipients must meet the program’s qualifications and spend up to a year in classes and Habitat work projects before they get the keys and a no-interest mortgage (see informaton below).

Because of the strict guidelines, only five of the 313 Habitat homes in Pinellas have ended up in foreclosure, according to Ron Spoor, the organization’s chief operating officer.

Baptiste, who moved into her new Midtown home in September, calls Habitat “a program of second chances.”

More than 200 volunteers helped build her home, she said. “It meant a lot to me; the community supported me throughout the entire process … There were a few military officers that volunteered to prime and paint the outside of my home. The support was just breathtaking.”

While she attended Habitat’s mandatory classes on home ownership, Baptiste worked two jobs – as a senior process technician at Valpak and a full-time mother to three children, ages 14, 11 and 4.

“It was hard,” she said. “I did struggle but the classes taught me responsibility.”

Her new home helped her develop a new attitude, Baptiste said. “Since all these random people helped me, I decided to pay it forward.”

She has helped build other Habitat homes. She spoke at the organization’s homeowner orientation class to share her experience and urge Habitat applicants to never give up. And she assisted with the development of Habitat’s Girl Powerhouse endeavor, which has the motto “Built by women; funded by women.”

On the day she received the keys to her new home, Baptiste was presented a Welcome mat by her new next-door neighbor – her sister.

Harrell said it took her 18 months to take the Habitat classes and complete her “sweat equity” hourswhile working full time as a licensed practical nurse and studying to become a registered nurse. She works at the nearby Johnnie Ruth Clarke Community Health Center.

At the dedication of her house, Harrell told Bay News 9 that she was overwhelmed with excitement. “Just to show my kids that you have something, you don’t have to rent all your life. Just to provide that stability for them.”

Her children, ages 11 and 10, are pleased that they don’t have to move around any more, said Harrell, and even more pleased that they now live next to their cousins.

How it works
To qualify for a new home, candidates must meet three principles – a need for housing, the ability to pay and a willingness to partner in the building efforts. Specifically, candidates must earn 30 to 80 percent of the median income in Pinellas County – as little as $22,500 a year for a family of four. They must demonstrate a need for adequate shelter, the ability to pay back a zero-interest loan and willingness to put in 250 to 350 “sweat equity hours” on their potential home and other Habitat homes. In addition, candidates must attend 20 homeownership preparedness classes on topics ranging from financial education to home maintenance, energy conservation, domestic violence, parenting and being a good neighbor.

BY HILLARY TERHUNE
NNB Student Reporter

TAMPA – Hockey is a grind, and not just for the players.

The sport is often called the “fastest game on Earth,” and with players who can reach speeds of 20 mph on skates and hit slap shots that travel at more than 100 mph, it’s easy to understand the nickname.

For every hockey player drawing a penalty or burying a one-timer, there is someone watching and documenting it.

Beat reporters are a lifeline that connects hockey fans to the sport they love. They are the reason fans can keep up with everything from trades and injuries to which goalie will start the game.

But it’s not always a glamourous job. Hockey writers face obstacles every day in order to stay informed about their beat.

Erik Erlendsson and Joe Smith know the role well. They are beat writers for the two major newspapers in the Tampa Bay area. Erlendsson has been the beat writer for the Tampa Tribune since 2001. Smith, who has been with the Tampa Bay Times since 2006, took over the beat this year.

Erlendsson, 43, is from Gloucester, Mass. An alumnus of the University of South Florida in Tampa, he began his career wanting to be a broadcast journalist. After an internship his sophomore year with a broadcast new organization, he found out that just wasn’t for him.

“I actually had an adviser who kept pushing me to do newspapers,” Erlendsson said.

So Erlendsson went into print journalism. He had been passionate about sports since he was a kid, and it felt like fate for him to become a beat writer. He covered high school sports from 1996 until 2000.

“I would have been perfectly happy doing that,” he said.

Than an opportunity to cover the Lightning came up. Erlendsson, who already had a background and an interest in hockey, went for it.

And for someone who doesn’t have a favorite hockey team, this opportunity was the perfect fit.

“One of the big keys, you have to take any emotion out of it,” he said. “You’re supposed to be a neutral observer, and you can’t do that if you have any sort of rooting interest in it.”

Smith, 33, followed a similar route. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he first heard the call of journalism when he noticed a fellow student had an article on the front page of the school newspaper. He knew he could do that same.

After Smith graduated from Michigan, he started working for the Modesto Bee in California. He covered high school sports, which he said he would be perfectly happy covering today. His passion for sports led him to the Times.

When Smith started at the paper in 2006, he helped cover the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Lightning – a chance to dip a toe into everything before he became the hockey beat writer this year.

Hockey writers are constantly observing and reporting. Erlendsson and Smith attend almost every practice, even optional ones, and they travel with the team.

“I can go three months without a day off,” Erlendsson said.

It’s easy to see why. The Lightning have played eight games in 15 days, four of them away games. It’s not unheard of to have a five-game road trip with back-to-back games in two cities, but it’s something that reporters have to endure.

In the 2001-2002 NHL season, Erlendsson took his first trip to Toronto for what he calls his “introduction to a major media market.”

Cory Cross, a Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman, had been cleared for contact after an injury. The Toronto news media wanted inside information, and “they literally almost knocked me over” to get to Cross, said Erlendsson.

Hip checks aren’t just for hockey players.

Reporting on hockey is almost as fast-paced and grueling as the sport itself, just in a very different way. Writers are up against deadlines and a constantly changing game, and it can be a challenge to be accurate.

On a normal day, Erlendsson arrives at the Amalie Arena in Tampa at 10:15 for a 10:30 skate practice.  He sets up his equipment in the media room down a chilly corridor. Then he makes his way out to the stands, where he sits and waits.

When the players start to make their way onto the ice, he looks for anything out of the ordinary.

“One thing right there,” he said. “Victor Hedman is skating in a normal colored jersey.”

Hedman, a defenseman for the Lightning, fractured his finger early in the season. When he participated in team practices, he wore a red, no-contact jersey. Since he has been cleared for contact he is now in a regular colored jersey.

“It doesn’t mean he’ll play; it just means he’s cleared for contact,” Erlendsson said.

He immediately posted the information to Twitter, a must-do in a situation like this.

“Social media has changed the way we do our job in so many different ways,” he said.

There are other things that reporters look for at practices. Line rushes and who is on the power play unit are just a few key elements, all of them important information when writers consider their articles.

“You’ll see the same drills a million times in a season,” said Smith. “It’s my job to keep it interesting for the readers.”

As players start to leave the ice, the reporters make their way to the locker room to interview players. They have to snag them when they get an opportunity.

If they have an idea for an article, they go into the locker room knowing whom they want to interview.

Smith went into an off-day practice with an idea for an article about faceoff percentages. He immediately talked to Tyler Johnson, Steven Stamkos, Valterri Filppula and Brian Boyle – the center men on the team and the ones who take the faceoffs.

“Not the most exciting topic, but it’s something people need to know about,” Smith said.

Reporters often have some kind of idea of what they are going to write about when they go into practices.

On an off day, it could be just about anything.

“It’s usually about trends or a player feature,” said Smith.

For game days, it’s a little different and the deadlines are a little tighter. Writers have to have story notes – short articles about injuries, upcoming games, tidbits about other teams – sent in immediately after the game-day practice. For someone who has been covering sports for years, like Smith and Erlendsson, that’s a breeze.

It’s the game article that is challenging.

“You’ll have most of your article written by the end of the second period, and the other team will get a power play goal and you’ll have to re-evaluate the whole thing,” Smith said.

The deadlines for game stories are different for every game but tend to be around 10:30 or 11 p.m., Erlendsson said. Reporters work on their articles between periods, but in a frequently changing game it’s hard to get a complete story in the first intermission.

You’ll hear no complaints from either him or Smith.

“At the end of the day I get paid to watch hockey,” Erlendsson said. “That’s a job a lot of people would love to have.”

Follow their coverage
“Lightning Strikes,” Joe Smith’s blog, is at:
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/lightning/

“Bolts Report,” Erik Erlendsson’s blog, is at:
http://tbo.com/sports/blogs/bolts-report/home/

BY KELLY MIYAR
NNB Student Reporter

ST. PETERSBURG – When Gulfport artist Cora Marshall puts brush to canvas, she is drawing on her African and Native American past.

Marshall, 67, and her husband moved to Gulfport in May 2013 after she retired from the art department at Connecticut State University in New Britain.

“We used to vacation to Florida a lot,” she said. “My husband and I knew we wanted to retire, so when we found something we liked on the water we moved.”

Since arriving, Marshall has shown her work in three St. Petersburg venues.

In April, she and local artist John Harte exhibited their work at the Studio@620 at 620 First Ave. S after they participated in the venue’s “Members Only Art Show.”

In October, she opened an exhibit titled “Runaway! Going, Going, Gone” at the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum at 2240 Ninth Ave. S. The work was inspired by “Wanted” advertisements from the 1700s and early 1800s that sought the return of runaway slaves.

Marshall said she used the descriptions of hair color, clothes, complexion, scars, demeanor and size to create vivid images that embodied realistic people.

In a note explaining the series, Marshall describes her work as a “commemoration of our survival and our ability to thrive under the most adverse beginnings.” She calls on viewers to remember “those who have come before us. Remembering the price they had to pay to survive. Remembering what it means to be free.”

On Nov. 8, a Marshall exhibit titled “INDIGENOUS” opened a month-long showing at Gallerie 909 at 909 22nd St. S. on the importance of remembering those who have  it means to be free.

The exhibit showcased work that was inspired by African and Native American cultures. It also included paintings from Marshall’s “Shadow Catcher” medicine woman series.

According to oral accounts of her family history, Marshall said, one of her grandmothers was a Native American healer.

“The first piece in the ‘Shadow Catcher’ series was created when I was really sick,” she said. My grandmother spoke to me of healing in my fevered dream. The painting came to me almost fully formed.”

Marshall said it typically takes her 50 to 60 hours to complete a piece. She paints in acrylics, oils and mixed media.

Marshall said she focuses her work in spirituality. She produces pieces that connect to her past by combining meanings and symbols. “Each painting carries a meaning and the viewer is invited to reflect,” she said.

She has a bachelor’s in fine arts from Howard University, a master’s in education through a collaborative program of the Bank Street College of Education and Parsons The New School for Design, and a doctorate in art from New York University.

At Connecticut State University, she taught a variety of art studio and education courses and served as department chairwoman from 2006 to 2012. She has exhibited around the country and overseas.

When she isn’t creating art, she said, Marshall said, she teaches an online photo class twice a year at Central Connecticut State.

She also likes to spend time with her husband, Clarence, go to the beach, and read.

BY SAMANTHA OUIMETTE
NNB Student Reporter

TAMPA – Managing an entire brand at the age of 25 would be a daunting task for most.

But Caity Kauffman has never been reluctant to take on the unknown.

She is the social media and digital marketing manager for the Tampa Bay Lightning, a professional sports team that has been in the area for 22 years. Though it operates in a non-traditional hockey market, the team has become one of the most popular brands in the National Hockey League, thanks in part to Kauffman’s efforts over the past season and a half.

Adweek magazine says the team has more than half a million social media followers, which is significant for a smaller market team.

A native of Miami, Kauffman got her introduction to hockey during a college internship with the Florida Everblades, a minor league team. She had grown up wanting to be a journalist so she embraced the chance to work in the team’s broadcast and public relations departments.

One problem:  She had never seen a hockey game. But she “took a risk and sort of talked my way into it, and once I was there I realized that I could learn anything,” she said.

Despite her hasty introduction to the sport, Kauffman quickly developed a love for it. After she graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University in December 2011, she landed a job as a producer for “Hockey Unfiltered,” a talk show on Sirius XM radio. She had tweeted out her resume. Someone re-tweeted it, and she was contacted for an interview.

Twitter also figured in the next two opportunities for Kauffman, who likes to say that “every tweet is a 140-character piece of art.” She used it on her next job, with a public relations firm in 2012 and 2013, and she embraces it now for the Lightning.

The advent and rapid growth of social media have prompted professional sports teams to rethink their branding strategies, and Kauffman is the first to hold a social media and digital marketing job for the Lightning.  She plays a key role in interacting with fans as well as jovial joshing with other teams, and she notes that there are special challenges in her job.

“I think you can’t go into professional sports seeing it as a job; you have to see it as a lifestyle,” Kauffman said. “If that’s not your work ethic, then it’s not for you. There have been times where I’ve been on vacation and I’ve had to drop everything to work. It’s difficult to keep up with on a daily basis, but I’ve always been a hard worker so it’s something that I enjoy.”

On the surface, Kauffman’s job may seem as simple as sitting at the computer, but on game nights she is constantly moving. With the Bolts Social Captain program, which she implemented last  season, Kauffman’s job entails being a sort of escort for the high-profile guests as well as managing the team’s various social media efforts across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Though Kauffman’s job is usually fun, there are still challenges. She must maintain the Lightning’s relatively conservative brand while monitoring the popular, and more liberal, precedent set by the Los Angeles Kings and some other teams. She also must help report team news that might be unpopular, such as trading an admired player, and work to minimize the fallout.

Even through 12-hour days and seven-game home stands, Kauffman notes that the temporary exhaustion never allows her to forget how lucky she is. After all, she says, she is one of the few people who have found their dream job.

“I get paid to do what other people do for fun. Even when it gets to the point of having worked for six nights in a row and I’m exhausted, I am so grateful to be in this position,” she said.

“I get paid to tweet and watch hockey; it doesn’t get much better than that.”

On the web
Watch Kauffman’s appearance on the PBS show BizKid$ in 2011/