Category: Uncategorized

By Paige Masten

 

For most of his life, Abhishek Shankar wanted to be white.

Shankar, 20, is Indian American. Shankar’s parents, who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1980s, hoped their American-born children would still embrace their Indian identity. But they didn’t know they’d be raising Shankar and his brother in a world post-9/11, heightened with racism and anti-brown violence.

It doesn’t matter that they aren’t Arab nor Muslim, though neither of those identities make someone any less American; to the rest of the country, it doesn’t matter.

Someone throws a brick through Shankar’s parents’ car after 9/11. For nearly a decade, Shankar’s mother refrains from wearing cultural Indian clothing, so she doesn’t stand out.

The Shankars choose to separate themselves from their Indian identity, hoping their children’s experiences in America will be better.

Despite all of their efforts to help their sons assimilate — burying the religion, the language, the culture — Shankar and his brother still have the same experience and are still perceived in the same way.

The constant question of “where are you from?” The time someone from the neighborhood told Shankar and his family they were “sand n——.”

“I hate how I look,” Shankar would think to himself. “I hate that my skin is this color.”

Then, in 2017, Shankar comes to UNC-Chapel Hill as a bright-eyed first year and finds himself surrounded by a community who knows exactly how that feels.

Asian Americans, the largest ethnic minority at UNC, comprise about 11% of the student body and 20% of the 2020 incoming class. But in 2017, they are the only group without a space dedicated to its culture on campus — and a survey conducted by UNC in 2016 found that 35% of Asian American students reported they lacked a sense of belonging.

“The journey of self-acceptance and embracing the culture only happened when I came to college,” Shankar says. “Seeing that there were people like me that were proud of who they were, and willing to share it with others.”

Now, Shankar is the director of the student-led Asian American Center campaign, which has spent more than a year working to establish an on-campus space where Shankar and his peers can feel supported and understood.

 

The seed is planted

It’s May 2019 and Sean Nguyen is meeting his friend June Yom, president of the Asian American Students Association, for coffee. Yom told him that Eugene Lao, a UNC alumnus who co-founded AASA more than 30 years ago, wanted to give the organization a $100,000 gift.

But Yom thought the money could be used for something bigger — the creation of an Asian American Center at UNC.

Nguyen, 21, has struggled with what it means to be Asian American; he calls the creation of the center his “coming-of-age moment.” Nguyen believes in the center, so he becomes the inaugural director of the student campaign.

Shankar, co-director of development Preeyanka Rao and several of their peers spend the following summer laying the roots for what they hope will become the Asian American Center.

Nguyen describes the campaign experience as “serendipitous,” and from that day forward, things begin to fall into place. Ten students working from their bedrooms over the summer, bringing a dream to life and conducting phone calls and meetings reaching across time zones. They talk with UNC’s administration, convincing them that the community needs a center like this on campus.

They are not the first students to have this dream — the seed had been planted more than two decades before by student advocates of an Asian American Resource Center. But without enough administrative support and momentum to water it, the dream shriveled up.

Now, a new generation of students is here to replant the seed, and for Shankar, Rao and Nguyen, continuing the movement feels like coming full circle.

 

The budding of the center

Shankar is studying in Washington, D.C. for the semester. It’s Jan. 29, a Wednesday, so he’s at work, performing his duties as an intern for a public health organization. From the outside, it seems like a normal day.

But today, the campaign team faces its biggest obstacle yet: getting the approval of the University Board of Trustees.

Shankar can’t focus, his anxiety is too high. On his lunch break, his eyes are glued to his phone, frantically checking for updates from his teammates, who are gathered in the ballroom of the Carolina Inn, listening to the meeting and awaiting the board’s decision.

Finally, Shankar gets a text from Rao: the board has officially granted the Asian American Center authorization to establish.

Shankar doesn’t get emotional often, but the immensity of the moment overwhelms him. Suddenly, everything they’ve been working toward for almost a year — the fundraising, the organizing, the late nights and exhaustion — feels so incredibly real.

Back in Chapel Hill, the team is celebrating with hugging, crying and standing in shock, struggling to process the full extent of what just happened.

“Damn,” Nguyen thinks to himself. “We really did that.”

Rao describes that moment as one of the highlights of her year. But she knows the gates have just opened and there is much work left to be done to get the center off the ground.

This crucial step in their journey happened much faster than the team could have hoped for or expected, but the road ahead is long and winding. The team struggles with juggling the responsibilities of being full-time students while pouring their hearts and souls into the campaign.

“We felt the weight of Asian American activists at UNC historically on our shoulders, and the future of Asian American students depending on us to get this job done,” Nguyen says.

 

A center in bloom

Only nine months later, the center is preparing for its official opening.

It’s the fastest that a center has ever been built at UNC. By comparison, the Carolina Latinx Center, which opened in July 2019, took more than 10 years.

It’s an impressive feat, but the campaign team knows the journey began much earlier in 1994, when the first whispers of an Asian American Resource Center appeared in the student newspaper. It began in the moments when Shankar, Rao, Nguyen and their peers felt they didn’t belong on campus, when they wished for more resources on campus for people like them.

“We knew it wouldn’t benefit us,” Shankar says. “We knew that it wouldn’t ultimately happen in our timeline, but it would be something that was ever-present for every future generation to come.”

The center’s inaugural event — a discussion of the film “I’m Not Racist … Am I?” — is the first in a series of events about anti-Blackness in the Asian American community. Rao and the development team have raised around $630,000 so far. Now, they’re hoping to raise $5 million over the next five years to fully endow the center, so it can exist in perpetuity.

Until that event, Shankar says, it still felt like an idea. But it hits him like a wave: the center is here.

He hopes that the center will serve as a resource for students like him, who’ve struggled to come to terms with their identity.

“I don’t think the way to address it is avoidance,” Shankar says. “Avoid the difficult conversations, avoid sharing in the culture, things like that. And that’s why I think the center will be successful because I really just don’t want what happened to me — what happened to people like me — to happen to others in the future.”

The team knows they’ve created something much bigger than themselves — a place for future generations of Asian American students to explore, affirm and belong. At last, the seed will bloom. To Nguyen, the moment feels historic.

“Events at the center will come and go, but regardless, there will be that presence there,” Nguyen says. “And somebody’s job at UNC-Chapel Hill will be to make sure that there is a center promoting Asian American voices and Asian American culture.”

 

Edited by: Evan Castillo

By Meredith Radford

 

In a small school on a small island last year, all a young girl wanted to do was paint with the biggest brush in the brightest orange color, spreading the paint as widely as she could across the canvas. Sarah Cornette just kept trying to hand her smaller brushes.

 

“She wasn’t meaning to be mischievous, or even cover up other people’s work. She just had never painted before and it was so exciting,” Cornette said.

 

Cornette came to Samos Island, Greece, to give the children seeking refuge there a chance to create.

 

Cornette wanted these children to be part of a mural project she’d started with her art club students, many of whom were migrants and refugees as well, at Mary Scroggs Elementary School in Chapel Hill months before.

 

With each group that Cornette worked with, she always asked them to paint what was important to their community. Each time she wanted to add a piece to the mural, she rolled up the heavy canvas and carried it to the next location.

 

Her students’ mural showed the landscape of North Carolina, with mountains filled with children’s faces on one end, the beach on the other and their school in the middle.

 

 

The beginnings of Cornette’s mural project

 

 

Cornette received a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching grant to make her project, Same Difference The Mural, happen. Her plan was to have one panel painted by students in Chapel Hill, and one panel done by students, including refugees, in Greece to see how art could bridge the gap between cultures and experiences.

 

After working with students in Chapel Hill, she traveled to Greece to work with students in the 3^rd Middle School/High School of Thessaloniki.

 

The students of Thessaloniki made their mural panel as a sort of complementary piece to the Scroggs students’. Where the other panel had the sun, they put a moon, and they had the sea meet the ocean of the other students’ panel.

 

But there weren’t any refugee children in the Thessaloniki school as Cornette had expected. So she sewed on another panel and planned a trip to Samos.

 

Refugees on Samos traveled the Mediterranean Sea on overcrowded rafts from Turkey with the hope of gaining asylum in Europe. But for now, they were kept in an overflowing camp full of makeshift shelters, separated from the impoverished town down the hill.

 

Cornette’s daughter, Eliza Cornette Cook, traveled to Samos with her. Cornette Cook said places like Samos still show signs that they were once popular tourist destinations.

 

“They’re very strange, surreal places to be,” she said.

 

The children would come down the hill from their camp to the school, Mazí, meaning “together,” to paint the mural. They painted the stark difference between their camp and the town below.

 

They used grays, blacks and browns for the camp, but colored the town with bright yellows, blues and pinks. They included a raft headed toward shore filled with people saying “mama,” “papa” and “family.”

 

 

The spontaneous final piece

 

 

When Cornette returned to the U.S. to show the mural, she was immediately hounded with daily news and conversation about the immigration crisis at her own border.

 

“It was just impossible for me not to see the parallels with what was happening on Samos, and to feel pretty shocked by that, as a person from a country that was founded on offering people shelter from persecution,” Cornette said.

 

She decided then that it wasn’t finished.

 

This time, she’d have to fund the trip and this part of the mural herself, with the help of her friend Laura Streitfeld.

 

Streitfeld said that Cornette’s project was important because it showed humanity and told the story of people who were faceless in the news.

 

Within a few months, Cornette was on her way to El Paso, Texas to add another panel to the mural, this time with her good friend Kerry James.

 

They weren’t allowed in the shelters on the U.S. side of the border, so they crossed into Ciudad Juárez every day to work with people at Casa Del Migrante, a shelter run by the Catholic Diocese in Ciudad Juárez.

 

What was intended to be a project involving around 10 kids, ended up including as many kids, adults and whole families as could fit in the shelter’s small dining hall to draw and paint.

 

After the families finished planning their sketches, Cornette showed them the rest of the mural.

 

“That was kind of important to me that the kids unroll what the other children had done,” Cornette said. “It’s almost like a narrative scroll.”

 

But Cornette noticed that after the first day, the girls who had expressed interest in working on the mural had stopped showing up. Cornette and James found out that the girls weren’t allowed to come work on the art; there were too many boys present and their fathers were worried for their safety.

 

“That has a lot to do with what happens on the journeys from their home countries through these very dangerous situations,” Cornette said.

 

So, they decided to organize a girls-only hour.

 

“Whatever they’ve experienced or whatever they were worried about, I can’t really appreciate as a white woman from a completely different culture,” Cornette said.

 

James said Cornette had the participants be the ones to make decisions about what went on the mural.

 

“I was super impressed with how she gave up the expectation of what the outcome would be,” James said. “And she really let the kids do the art.”

 

Cornette said the Juárez mural showed things that they longed for, like school, peace and a place to practice their religion safely.

 

“It was things that we just don’t even think about, that we just assume,” Cornette said.

 

 

What Cornette learned

 

 

On all of these projects, Cornette said it having a community partner was vital.

 

“You can’t just walk into another culture like this and expect people to trust you,” Cornette said. “You need to have someone who has been there, who knows the people, who know their names, who can explain both what you’re trying to do, but also explain to you what the problem is.”

 

Cornette said everyone was grateful to be working with color and creating art together.

 

“It really just built my belief in the power of the arts to connect people,” she said.

 

Streitfeld said the mural shares a story that few folks get to hear.

 

“It tells us so much about children whose voices haven’t been heard, but who have been referred to as nameless numbers in the news,” she said.

 

Cornette showed the mural at her new school, The Hawbridge School in Saxapahaw, NC after she returned. She said it facilitated conversations about refugees and the border crisis.

 

“I hope that through talking about it, some kids from rural North Carolina were able to gain some empathy,” Cornette said.

 

She wants to find the mural a permanent home, but it’s been difficult. Cornette said part of the problem is that although the problems at the border haven’t gone away, they are discussed less.

 

“The indignation over that faded,” Cornette said. “It became something that wasn’t part of the news cycle anymore, and people weren’t as interested in it.”

 

For now, the 34-foot mural sits rolled up underneath her bed.

 

Edited by Annelise Collins

By Jared McMasters

When walking into the Ronald McDonald House of Chapel Hill last October, Heidi Kreis forced a smile across her face.

Kreis, a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill at the time, slogged through one of those days. She had the stress of exams and schoolwork lingering in the back of her mind, and a 20-pound blond wig resting on her head that strained her neck.

The 45 minutes Kreis spent applying makeup and squeezing into her costume multiplied her impatience by the second. But, she still encouraged herself, saying it would just be for two hours and to do her best.

“Truthfully, I did go in with a bad attitude,” she said.

Kreis’ is typically the one brightening peoples’ moods through her work with UNC-CH’s chapter of A Moment of Magic. It is a nationwide nonprofit organization that sends volunteers to their local hospitals dressed as superheroes or fairytale princesses to visit children with serious illnesses.

But, in this instance, 4-year-old Mia Ivey was the one cheering up Kreis. About six months prior to Kreis’ visit, doctors diagnosed the little girl with Stage IV Neuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer most commonly found in young children typically originating around the kidneys.

Being days after Mia’s fourth birthday, Kreis arrived to see a miniature replica of herself coming out to greet her near the front entrance at Ronald McDonald House. The 4-year-old donned a wig woven together with yellow yarn, a lavender-colored dress, and carrying a handful of Rapunzel dolls.

Kreis’s weary smile relaxed into a natural one.

The college student had intended to only visit for about two hours but ended up staying for five. The two princesses spent the time enjoying a game of hide and seek in the building’s massive courtyard before heading inside. Kreis showered Mia with gifts of coloring books, Play-Doh, and even more dolls.

“It took [Mia’s] mind off what she was going through,” Ivy Ivey, Mia’s mother, said. “To this day, she still talks about when they visited, and she’ll tell people she got to meet a princess.”

It’s all these countless experiences that make the UNC-CH senior’s time in A Moment of Magic worthwhile.

Before College: ‘The Magic of Camp’

Since middle school, Kreis has gone out of her way to be a pillar of support for others.

After spending her childhood summers attending camps with her older brother, Scott, she jumped at the opportunity to become a counselor in training at Camp Kanata, an overnight camp in Wake Forest. After two summers of training, Kreis earned a certification to supervise her own troop of campers a few years before she arrived at UNC.

For most teenagers, spending 10 weeks under the burden of on-call shifts at an overnight camp, sharing a log cabin with nearly a dozen screaming elementary schoolers, and preparing group activities for kids with fleeting attention spans sounds like a terrific way to ruin a summer.

Not for Kreis.

“That probably was one of the biggest parts of my life, especially growing up through high school,” she said. “Camp was something I looked forward to, and those are the friends I really love.”

During one of her final summers working at Camp Kanata, a social worker dropped off 10-year-old Grace. She had very few belongings, which was a rarity at a camp that costs parents a grand per week.

“Heidi was always really good at working with the kids who really needed a little more attention in order to have the best time that they could,” Scott said.

At the start of that week, all 350 campers took part in the standard boys versus girls cheer-off. Grace isolated herself while the rest of the girls shouted, “We are young girls, strong girls, living on a lake going to take on the world someday” to the tune of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

Kreis made it her mission to take Grace under her wing for the rest of the week, slowly incorporating her into group activities with the rest of the campers. By Friday, the young girl was braiding her friends’ hair, exchanging school emails to stay in touch, and screaming “Angels, butterflies, daisies, too, we’re gonna rock this house for you” in the cheer-off rematch.

“As the week went on, things got really fun for her,” Kreis said. “She saw the magic of camp, which is a different type of magic from A Moment of Magic, but it’s still a great feeling.”

How COVID Impacted A Moment of Magic

Local hospitals have understandably transformed into impenetrable fortresses over the last seven months.

Many of the young patients visited by A Moment of Magic volunteers are immunocompromised, so limiting exposure to the outside world is a top priority for staff members. Those barriers are taking a toll on the Chapel Hill chapter’s progress that had been building since starting in 2018.

In-person visits switched over to 30-minute chats over Zoom. The group’s fashion show fundraiser, an event that would’ve allowed 30 kids to walk a runway dressed as their favorite characters, generated $5,000 in donations before COVID-19 forced the organizers to call it off. Executive members like Kreis, who now serves as the chapter’s Vice President, spend their days worrying about who will fill their positions in the future; the foundation doesn’t have opportunities to show new members the extent of its capabilities.

“Without all the momentum from going to club meetings to just being on Zoom, it’s hard to know what the future of this chapter will look like here,” chapter President Julia Drahzal said.

The organization is still doing whatever it can to try to replicate that pre-pandemic spark.

Kreis is part of a team that operates the chapter’s new hotline phones for patients to schedule calls with different characters. She oversees several of the foundation’s subcommittees, such as a fundraising group that just organized a trivia night event less than two weeks ago. She also helped implement book readings for children through Facebook live streams to help capture that original sense of joy in-person visits can bring.

And for some, it’s all working.

“[My kids] have really enjoyed the Zoom meetings, and I feel like they still get the same feeling during and after it,” Ivey said.

Staying in touch, regardless of any hurdles, in a socially isolated world is what helps Kreis keep those personal connections with former visitors, like Mia.

Kreis sent the Ivey family a painting of Rapunzel’s castle that still hangs on Mia’s wall three months after her doctors announced she was cancer-free.

“Rapunzel gave it to me,” Mia tells anyone who points it out.

edited by Jackie Sizing 

By Blake Weaver

Elijah Grant Crawford weighed 8 pounds and 3 ounces when he was born on Oct. 6, 2020, at just after 1 p.m. – in the middle of a global pandemic. During his first year of life, most people he sees outside his house will be wearing masks.

His mother, Katie Crawford, announced her third pregnancy in January. Crawford’s mother cried tears of joy while her father just sat in shock. Crawford’s eight-year-old daughter, Abby, jumped excitedly as her nine-month-old son, Joshua, crawled around the living room.

Crawford said she didn’t think much of the flu-like virus she’d heard about on the news that week.

“I saw reports of the coronavirus on the news, and my ears didn’t perk up until I heard there was a case in Washington,” Crawford said. “I still didn’t really pay attention. They kept comparing it to the flu, so I just ignored it.”

Two months later, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. Much remains unknown about COVID-19 – even less about its effect on pregnancies. While Crawford didn’t have an exposure scare during her pregnancy, she said she felt lonely and helpless in the face of abrupt, potentially long-lasting, changes.

Getting ready for new life amid a nationwide shutdown.

After learning she was pregnant, Crawford spent two months preparing and planning for her new child. She moved furniture around her two-bedroom condominium, while she could still manage, and began budgeting with her husband, Walt Crawford.

She’d recently left her job to stay home and take care of her nine-month-old son. Walt started taking double shifts at Taco Bell, where he works as a general manager.

Cases increased substantially during this time, but Crawford said she still thought it was just a new flu. She remembered the 2009 swine flu pandemic and imagined COVID-19 would spread similarly. Since the swine flu came and went without affecting her, Crawford said she didn’t see any reason to worry.

“I think a lot of panic came from the media reports in the beginning,” Crawford said. “The panic – buying and mask and hand sanitizer shortages – I thought all of it was silly.”

Then, most of the country shut down, including her daughter’s school. Crawford had to create a homeschool environment in her condo while raising her now one-year-old son. Although she was barely showing, Crawford said she already felt the pregnancy’s strain.

“Walt was still working constantly, so we could actually afford this family,” Crawford said. “I don’t want to say that I was stuck taking care of the kids because I knew I wanted to stay at home anyway and loved every minute of it. The atmosphere was just different.”

Her daughter was also feeling the pandemic’s impact.

“We try to play as many games as possible to stay happy,” Abby said. “Mom keeps us focused on the happy things while everything seems sad.”

Facing pregnancy alone and losing supportive social connections

Crawford used to shuttle her daughter to and from school and countless extracurriculars, which gave her time to talk to teachers and other parents. She frequently gathered with a group of parents who shared dessert recipes in the back of the gymnasium while their children played.

“The world suddenly shut down, and I didn’t even get to say a ‘See you soon’ to everyone I saw on a daily basis. I wanted to see my friends and family, but I knew I couldn’t,” Crawford said.  “There was really nothing I could do to fix anything, and that was hard for me. Part of me wanted to go back to work just to feel some part of normalcy.”

During her past two pregnancies, Crawford’s mother, Ellen Cotton, came to her house almost daily to support her. Since she works in a medical support field, she’s had to stay away more often than they both would like.

“It’s hard for me to know my daughter is stuck, and I can’t really go help that often,” Cotton said. “Anytime I’m potentially exposed, I’m anxiously counting down the days until I can go see Katie.”

Each prenatal care checkup reminded Crawford of the pandemic’s painful realities. No one was allowed to come with her – not even her husband. The couple said not being together for Crawford’s appointments, like they had been for her previous pregnancies, was one of the worst feelings.

“I struggled to hold it together those days,” Walt said. “I felt like I wasn’t there for my wife and child.”

Giving birth and looking toward the future.

When the time came for Elijah’s birth, the Crawfords packed two weeks’ worth of clothes and made arrangements for Katie’s mother to watch the kids. They wouldn’t be allowed out of the hospital, and no one was allowed to visit.

“It felt much more like an operation than anything else,” Katie said. “This is supposed to be one of the happiest times of our lives, and it still is, but there isn’t the same energy.”

The doctors and nurses wore extensive personal protective equipment, but the Crawfords did not wear any. They only were asked to do so if they left the room, which they rarely did.

“I was not going to give up a last morsel of comfort when I was about to give birth,” Crawford said. “I rarely wore a mask the last six months, and I’m not going to now unless I absolutely have to.”

Now a big brother, Joshua has developed an aversion to masks and hides from people wearing them. He only responds to someone if they pull their mask down to show their full face – a practice that Katie doesn’t mind but her mother warns against. Abby said she tries encouraging her brother to be comfortable around masks, given that they will be commonplace for the foreseeable future.

“Joshua has spent this year seeing everyone suddenly start wearing masks,  and I think it’s a shocking change for him. He’s so young, but he saw people without masks before, and I think he remembers that,” Abby Crawford said. “Eli won’t have that. He’s just going to see masks everywhere. This is just how it is right now.”

Edited by Ellie Heffernan

By Drew Wayland

Two and a half years ago, Daniel Horne was in a bad accident. Driving home from a date with his fiancé, Annie, on a poorly lit two-lane highway, a drunk driver lost control of his vehicle and slid into the wrong lane. The oncoming car clipped Horne’s silver Subaru and sent both vehicles spinning off the road, where Horne and his fiancé ran into a loblolly pine tree.

Horne came out relatively lucky, with just cuts, bruises and a permanently aching back. Annie shattered both of her ankles.

Daniel and Annie were thankful to be alive. But now they faced a problem seemingly without solution. Horne, a recovering addict and alcoholic, had committed to a life without narcotics since October 30, 2015. He and his fiancé now had chronic, debilitating pain they could not treat with prescription drugs without risking Horne’s life.

He had been in severe pain for seven months when a friend told him to check out something called kratom. 

A second chance at pain relief

“I tell people all the time that I would probably be dead or in jail without kratom,” says Horne. “I’m not sure I would have been able to live with the pain without relapsing at some point.”

Kratom is a plant in the coffee family that originated in Southeast Asia. In the last five years, it made an explosive entrance to American drug and medicine industries, going from a relatively obscure compound used by Thai and Malaysian immigrants, to a substance consumed by nearly 10 million Americans. However, the substance is still far from a household name.

“My friend told me it was kind of like tea or coffee,” he said. “This plant you mix into a drink, and it helps people with their pain. I didn’t know back then that it would do so much for my life, that it would allow me to be a functioning member of society again.”

Kratom has opioid properties, but acts more like a mild stimulant than a true opiate, like prescription oxycodone, Xanax or heroin. It is known to reduce anxiety, depression, and chronic pain for many users, and helps recovering addicts manage withdrawal symptoms. The plant is not addictive in the medical sense, but it is on a similar level of caffeine in the habit-forming sense.

“Part of the reason people like myself are hesitant to use kratom is because of its association with recreational drugs,” says Horne. “I’d go to my Narcotics Anonymous meetings and everybody would say, ‘no, don’t touch that stuff, it’s just another substance,’ but I think that fear really holds people back from trying something that could save their life.”

Local lounge gets behind kratom

Horne’s friend told him about a tea lounge in Carrboro, called Oasis, that specializes in kratom. Two years ago, he walked into the shop tucked away in a forgotten corner of Carr Mill Mall, to a scene of ornate rugs, religious statues, Rastafarian art and incense. There, he met Robert Roskind.

Roskind opened Oasis in 2012 as “a place of sharing and spreading love to all.” After an upbringing in Atlanta, a young adulthood spent in the West Coast counterculture of the 1960s and ‘70s, and a decade of activism in 2000s Jamaica, he was ready to come home and plant the seeds of everything he’d learned on his journey. Roskind tried kratom for the first time in 2016, on the advice of his daughter.

“I really understood why they call it the happiness plant,” he says. “It gives me the energy of consuming caffeine, but it also lifts the spirit and facilitates better moods. You aren’t intoxicated on kratom, if anything you’re a little more in touch with yourself and the world around you.”

Users have reported increased focus and sociability under the influence of kratom. Roskind uses one variety, green kratom, to power himself through his busy days and another, red kratom, to relax in the evenings. Oasis sells two other varieties, white and Maeng Da, which correspond to high energy and pain prevention, respectively. Kratom has been their biggest source of revenue since they started selling it in 2017.

About 1% to 2% of people have negative side effects to the substance in the form of light-headedness or nausea. The biological reasons for this are not yet well understood, but Roskind says there may be a connection between frequent users of marijuana and the adverse effects.

“Maybe there’s some chemical reason for it, or maybe those two plants just don’t like each other very much,” he says. “But I’ve seen incredible results from most people who try it. We have about 25 people who buy from us to help treat their addictions or their chronic pains, and we give it to them at a discounted rate. A couple people come in who are just barely making ends meet, and for situations like that I’ll just give it away.”

Horne gets the discounted rate at Oasis, and has befriended Robert in the two years he’s been using the substance. He takes three drinks per day, a level teaspoon of kratom in a glass of orange juice, and says it drastically reduces his back pain and his desire to return to drugs.

“I was a heroin addict, but you could call me a trash can,” he likes to say about his life before 2015. “I would pretty much do anything in front of me. Drugs led me to stealing stuff, which led me to going to jail. It also led me to being sentenced to a two-year long-term treatment facility. At that time, I was not a productive member of society, I was anything but.”

Roskind says it motivates him to see people using kratom to improve their lives.

“I see him with his family on Facebook, playing with his son, taking trips with his family, and it brings me so much joy,” he says. “This has really helped him turn his life around.”

Kratom gets a second chance in the US

Kratom has a special position of legality that many medicinal drugs in the United States do not. It is legal for sale and consumption in all but five states, although trade over the internet is restricted by the federal government. In 2016, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made a move to ban kratom for recreational use, but thousands of letters and testimonies by recovering addicts and people with chronic pain put a stop to the action.

“People were writing to their congressmen and senators and telling them ‘if this goes away, you are going to have thousands of people in your state turning back to opiate addiction,’” says Roskind. “You know, people were saying that they needed this to live a normal life.”

In a rare moment for the FDA, the pressure stuck and the ban failed to go through Congress. Similar protests occurred on the state level, and kratom remained legal in 45 states.

“You still have to be careful where you source from,” Roskind says. “Because in some cases, poorly produced kratom can carry traces of heavy metals. A lot of that is people buying it over the internet using cryptocurrencies.”

On any given afternoon, the Oasis lounge is populated by a few people enjoying the benefits of the plant. Robert can point around the room: “one, two, three, four, five…well, actually I think all of them are drinking kratom right now.” Recovering addicts and people with mental or physical pain are his favorite customers, but many young people use it recreationally to relax or be more social.

Horne says he respects the recreational use, but hopes that the substance can someday have mainstream appeal as a tool for recovery.

“Whether it’s because of that strict addict mindset of not compromising your sobriety or something bigger, with pharmaceutical companies wanting to reduce competition, it just isn’t as popular in the US as you might think,” he says. “That’s why I like to talk about it. To spread the word about something that can help people.”

Edited by Alana Askew

By Brittany McGee

Out on the town: Durham edition

Jeff Baynham, the interim vice chancellor of advancement services at North Carolina State University, got in his Nissan Altima, driving just over 20 miles to Durham to meet his partner, a public-school teacher named Sanders Bankwith, for their routine outing together.

It was date night, so they attended a Broadway show at the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC), which was a regular part of their lives.

It was a tradition.

Given their busy schedules, Baynham and Bankwith made it a priority to never miss their date nights at DPAC.

Tonight, they were going to see February’s show about that teenage girl. Mean Girls, was it? To them, it didn’t matter.

They found a great parking spot in the Cocoran Street Parking Deck, close to a number of restaurants and DPAC, so there would be no need to drive and find parking again.

The couple decided to go eat tapas from Mateo. They chatted about their days and used their dinner as an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company, leaving the stress from daily life behind for a few hours.

They had plenty of time after dinner and decided to get drinks. Bankwith had a cocktail, and Baynham had a Bourbon, because he is an old-fashioned guy, at the Aloft hotel, located right next to DPAC.

When it was time, they entered the theater, encouraged to put the distractions on hold and immerse themselves in a different world for a night.

“It’s hard for us to do that as a society now because you have the Twitters, and the Facebooks, and the texts and all that,” Baynham said.

Baynham cherishes these nights out when he and his partner can explore downtown Durham. Their favorite thing to do is try new restaurants and bars. Baynham moved to North Carolina in 2016, but four years later, he still feels a bit like a tourist.

Baynham and Bankwith are just regular people, out on the town, enjoying their night and supporting various businesses in downtown Durham. Alone, their story does not mean much, but together with the thousands of other DPAC patrons, this couple’s impact on the city’s economy is significant.

A pizza joint’s perspective

“Is it a show night?” Kendall Holleman, a 21-year-old server at Mellow Mushroom, asked a co-worker as she walked behind the long, brown counter, taking in the pizza joint’s fragrance.

Holleman has worked for Mellow Mushroom for about two years. She knows the drill. Whether it’s a game night for the Durham Bulls, or a show night at DPAC, servers in downtown Durham keep up with the events. Those are the money-making nights.

In February, most nights saw the restaurant packed. She didn’t work crazy long hours in those days, but the tips were good.

“You know on show nights, that’s when the big parties would come in,” Holleman said.

She and her fellow servers’ incomes fluctuate regularly with DPAC’s schedule; the more popular the show, the better their night.

The arrival of COVID-19

But then, everything changed, and businesses began shutting down as social distancing restrictions were put in place because if the Coronavirus.

There was no sign of another busy show night in sight.

Banyham and Bankwith had plans to go see Les Misérables with two of their friends on March 14. For a while, there was no information coming from DPAC about whether their show would go on.

Their friends bailed almost immediately, advising the couple to return their own tickets and get their money back. Cancelled show or not, this virus was too dangerous to take the risk.

The couple understood this, but it was a deeply instilled tradition; they could not make the decision about what to do. Finally, DPAC took the decision out of their hands by postponing the show, later cancelling it altogether.

Similarly, Holleman was faced with uncertainty; however, she was in a much more precarious position.

The restaurant was curbside only. No servers were necessary.

She stayed at home, in bed. At first, there was hope that this is how things would be for a few weeks, but then everything would go back to normal. But it didn’t.

“I didn’t know if I still had a job,” Holleman said.

For three months, she stayed inside, in her bed, never leaving. She drank, probably too much.

It could be called quarantine, but she knew the stress and anxiety made it more likely to be depression.

She began looking for other work.

Maybe a grocery store?

She avoided spending money as much as she could because her income was gone.

A city’s struggle with the virus

Margaret Pentrack, director of content for Discover Durham, said the pandemic has had a significant effect on visitation in the city. Both the number of visitors and their economic impact is estimated to be 45% less than what the initial 2020 expectations were.

DPAC’s economic impact alone added over $127 million to Durham’s economy in their 2018- 2019 season. It is impossible to say now, considering the effects of COVID-19.

“It is a doorway for introducing people to Durham,” said Susan Amey, CEO of Discover Durham. “People come here for the theaters and realize how much there is to see and do.”

Amey and Pentrack estimate that half of the 12,835 visitor-related jobs created by the tourism industry in Durham have been lost.

Three months went by before Holleman felt like she could breathe again.

She was one of the servers who would be brought back for real shifts. Luckily, she had already been a long-term employee of Mellow Mushroom’s.

Some of her co-workers, before COVID-19, had worked short, part-time shifts. Mellow Mushroom did not let anyone go, but those part-time shifts were shortened to practically nothing. The servers who were still able to get shifts found themselves working much longer hours than they did before but with a smaller crew.

This was, in part, due to another big change: shared tips.

Holleman said there were a number of employees who quit. The traffic was low, and shared tips were unappealing. There was also uncertainty surrounding whether they could be let go in the future. This worried Holleman as well.

She does not have a backup plan, and the restaurant industry is all she can do right now.

As for Baynham and Bankwith’s date nights?

They’re living together in Raleigh now, working remotely and making long drives around rural North Carolina to count as date nights.

They have not been to downtown Durham since February.

Edited by Sarah DuBose

By Ruth Samuel

At 808 Hodges Street in Raleigh lies the Reign Lounge, an empty nightclub with a fading baby blue exterior and brown shingle roof, temporarily closed due to COVID-19. Behind the club, its parking lot is full, overflowing with life.

Lyrics to “Koroba” by Tiwa Savage are blaring from the speakers.

“Who no like enjoyment? If money dey for pocket? Shebi na national budget o?”

Dressed in matching lavender ankara sets, aunties with penciled eyebrows and pencil skirts dance to the beat of congas and snare drums. Some Yoruba men are clad in black agbadas with matching loafers, others are flaunting 2018 Super Eagle football jerseys, and a select few Igbo elders wear their hard-earned bright red chief caps.

There’s a 40-minute line forming for the only thing Nigerians can impatiently wait on: jollof rice, chicken, and spicy, mouth-watering suya. As smoke emerges from the coal grill, “Pana” by Tekno is playing instead of “If” by Davido, the go-to song American DJs play for Africans if they know nothing about Afrobeats.

A Moment of Celebration

This is Independence Day.

Nothing, not even a global pandemic, can stop Nigerians across the diaspora from celebrating 60 years of freedom from the grip of British colonizers. Nigerians are the largest African immigrant population in the United States, with over 1,000 Nigerian-born residents in Raleigh alone.

“Eh, people decided to, now,” said Uchenna Richards in his big-city Lagos accent to someone pulling up. “It’s past five o’clock. We’re Nigerians. After you tell people once or twice what to do, they’re like, ‘Ah, I’ma leave this guy.’”

The 38-year-old Richards, a Greensboro resident, has lived in America for the past 25 years and graduated from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University. In 2006, he was tired of traveling out of town to celebrate his home country, so he spawned this celebration idea with his friends, and the event has become a tradition ever since.

This year, he wanted to try a COVID-conscious drive-thru cookout. On October 3, the event started at 1 p.m. and ended at 6 p.m., but it seems Nigerians are incapable of following someone else’s instructions. Running on “African Time,” folks were still trickling in at 5:11 p.m., parking along the street, and lingering.

“At the beginning, it was more like, ‘Let’s just get people to just drive through, get some food and go,’” Richards said. “Some people didn’t want to leave, so we figured, we’ll start off by telling people if you want to stay, park down the street.”

Huddled together in masks, groups of young adults are drinking Sprite or Vita Malt, greeting each other. Middle-aged men are slapping the backs of their palms three times followed by a hug. As soon as “Killin Dem” by rapper Burna Boy comes on, the small crowd erupts in cheers.

“At school, I’m PJ or Petronilla. Here, I’m Oge,” said Amaogechukwu Egbuna, sitting on the hood of a black SUV with her friends. Her real name — the name that Nigerian parents labor and pray over — means “in God’s time.”

Egbuna, a first-generation Nigerian-American, attends East Carolina University and came home just to attend the 14^th annual celebration with her mom and auntie. She was craving the seasoned food and feeling of community that she couldn’t get at school.

“Being Nigerian is amazing because it’s one of the greatest African countries in the world, one of the most known countries in the world,” the 20-year-old Egbuna said. “You know Nigerians, we love to throw parties and celebrate.”

A Catalyst for Community

In the ever-growing suya line, stands “Mirabelle” Nneoma Uma, wearing a neon green, yellow, and pink dashiki. As a little girl runs through the queue with a ball the size of her head, Uma is checking for messages from her relatives via WhatsApp.

“This event is about getting to meet people, fellow Nigerians, and socializing,” said Uma, who emigrated from Abia State two years ago. “The United States is a very individualistic country, so it’s really nice to be able to socialize and connect with fellow Nigerians, fellow Africans generally. I still really miss Nigeria.”

The 29-year-old is a graduate student at UNC Greensboro. She said the biggest change after moving to the United States was being in a country “where the structure works, roads are well-paved, and opportunity seems possible. The National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) in Nigeria isn’t fully functional.

Uma and her friends turn to face the caterer, Prince Kalu of PK Suya, as he scolds everyone in line and reminds them to not take more than one piece of chicken. When Kalu announces that there’s no more suya left, attendees groan and leave the line, some rolling their eyes, and others sucking their teeth, eliciting a distinctly West African sound of disdain and disgust.

Life in the United States

Yards away, fanning herself comfortably under a tent, wearing a green t-shirt, jeans, and black slip-on hospital shoes is Amaka Ofodile, a member of the Nigerian Nurses Association with over 16 years of nursing experience. She immigrated to the United States 27 years ago and first landed in Newark, New Jersey.

“I don’t know what I was expecting to see,” Ofodile said. “I actually went back home, then after some time, I came back again. I thought in America, money just comes. I didn’t know you’d have to work so hard in order to eat. America is really difficult.”

Along with their three-panel posterboard, members of the Nigerian Nurses Association of North Carolina (NNANC) were handing out informational pamphlets on hypertension and domestic violence, which saw a 134% increase in Nigeria in 2018. Despite its issues, Ofodile misses Enugu state, so events like this bring home closer to her.

Ofodile said, “I miss everything about Nigeria: the food, the social life, the vegetables. Everything is real, organic. We don’t have adulterated food. We’re having some challenges in Nigeria, no 24-hour light, food, and water, but our country is working on it. There is hope.”

Richards believes that this celebration is a necessity, a reminder of the progress made and the progress yet to come.

“I tell people this is the one event where you can get Nigerians of different tribes and there will be no problems,” said Richards, who is Igbo. “Growing up, our generation versus the parents’ generation, there was this big tribalistic problem. When it comes to independence, for that weekend and that day, everyone puts everything aside.”

 

Edited by: Luke Buxton

By the time Jade Dickerson closed the guest room door and settled at his desk, the Spanish teacher had been awake for nearly four hours. His computer monitors hummed to life and he flicked on his lamp, illuminating his face just enough so it could be seen on Google Meet.

His makeshift home office in Durham, where he now spends most of his weekdays, is cozy and dark, with tree branches blocking the sunlight from streaming in and catching “The Lady of Shalott” painting on the wall behind him.

If things were normal and he were back at Chapel Hill High School’s recently-renovated campus, Jade would have been in a new classroom with new desks and ample wall space for colorful decorations and posters with Spanish phrases. His twin five-year-old sons would be at kindergarten, singing and sitting cross-legged on a circular carpet. The Dickerson family would be working, learning and making friends without fear of contracting COVID-19.

But this school year has been hasn’t been normal.

At 9 a.m., with the sounds of tiny footsteps padding across the floor below, the teacher of 16 years turned on his camera.

“Hola clase,” he said to the screen, greeting each student individually before starting their bi-weekly lesson.

Social Isolation  

Now a few weeks into school, the twins, Xander and Graeme, are more comfortable with class. They can type in the access codes for their four daily meetings by themselves and can sit still for most of the instruction. They have their own space by the dining room to do their work with whiteboards, counting circles and dice. Cuddly, a small white teddy bear, accompanies the boys to school most days.

Still, either Jade or his wife Karyn, an instructional literacy coach at CHHS, has to stay nearby to resolve any problems.

There have been good days and bad days, according to Jade. But the bad days can be excruciating.

“There’s a lot of tears, a lot of yelling, hurt feelings, thrown iPads, resistance to any suggestions or any motivation to do what’s necessary,” Jade said.

No matter how many games they play or how much drawing they do, Xander and Graeme know this isn’t what school normally feels like. In a typical kindergarten classroom, interaction is almost constant. If Xander wanted to share an idea, he could get his teacher’s attention immediately. He now has to wait for his teacher to see his tiny hand raised in a tiny box on a tiny screen. Then he has to figure out how to unmute his microphone.

As is the nature with twins, the boys have a built-in playmate – but that doesn’t make up for the social interaction they’re missing from being stuck at home.

“What if when we go back to school no one likes me?” one of the boys asked their mom.

Watching the twins get nervous and frustrated with their online setup weighs on the parents.

“I have no way of explaining to my sons why they should be doing this.” Jade said. “I’ve run out of excuses for them.”

Adapting to the Virtual Classroom

Jade is fighting a similar battle in his own online Spanish I and Spanish III classrooms. Though the attendance rates in his synchronous classes are relatively high, at least half of his students keep their cameras turned off. Only about 20% are completing any work outside of class.

Jade can’t tell whether his students are focused on the work in front of them. Some kids are playing video games while being logged into class. Others turn on their audio to answer a question and reveal sounds of cooking, television shows or siblings fighting in the background.

He knows his students are struggling; the transition to online learning, a lack of silent study spaces and no ways to interact in-person with their classmates can be particularly difficult for teenagers.

“I feel powerless, in most cases, to meet their needs, even on the educational level,” Jade said. “There’s just so much I can’t do.”

In an attempt to provide his classes with some sort of normalcy, Jade has relied heavily on breakout rooms. Learning Spanish, he said, requires connection and interaction.

Adam Trusky, a 14-year-old freshman in Jade’s Spanish III class, said the breakout rooms help him meet his classmates, but he doesn’t feel like he’s making new friends. The coursework can also be difficult – he hadn’t practiced much Spanish since school went online in March and classes now only meet twice a week.

“I feel like it’s not really enough,” Trusky said. “It would be much more helpful if we were doing it every day.”

Family Time

By the end of the school day, Jade and Karyn are exhausted from juggling meetings, class and home responsibilities.

They try to focus all their attention on their boys, enjoying the opportunity to just be their parents and enjoy family time. Finding work-life balance is especially difficult when work is at home.

Christen Campbell, a fellow CHHS teacher who’s on maternity leave through November, said she considered taking time off she couldn’t afford before her baby was due because adjusting to virtual school while caring for a young child sometimes felt impossible.

“A lot of teachers feel like they’re dedicating time to other people’s kids and aren’t able to support their own kids as well,” Campbell said.

The three educators have found solace and support in their colleagues and friends, albeit virtually. Teacher group texts and frequent team meetings provide a space to share the highs and lows of educating the public, while also educating their own children.

For the Dickersons, it’s the moments alone, playing with their sons at the end of a long day that melts some of the stress from their shoulders. Five-year-old giggles and family movie nights watching Frozen 2 for the hundredth time can make it feel like their home is just that – a home.

But once the boys are in bed, Jade and Karyn turn back to their computers, already preparing for the next day of class.

 

Edited by Ryan Heller

By Venetia Busby

Large blue and gray tents housing tubs of clothes, underwear, snacks, water, Gatorade, masks, gloves, medical supplies and hand sanitizer, sit outside of the Mecklenburg County Detention Center. Every day, dozens of volunteers wait for the magistrate’s office doors to open across the street. 

The moment someone walks out of the double doors, volunteers turn their heads and shout, “Did you just get out of jail?” Loud clapping and shouts of excitement quickly fill the area as volunteers greet the recently released inmates with essential supplies and support.

Steam from hot food, provided by community chefs and bakers from Feed The Movement CLT, fills the area as people line up to nourish their bodies. Smiling and laughing volunteers circle around the tent playing games, passing out supplies and offering support.  

Charlotte Uprising, an activist group that formed after a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officer shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott in 2016, formed Jail Support, the supply hub and resource center that sits in front of the Mecklenburg County Detention Center.

Jail Support helps transition people from jail to life in society.

“We created Jail Support because there was a need in the community to support people who were released from jail,” Charlotte Uprising organizer Ash Williams said. “There are volunteers who greet and assist people who are released with a ride home, temporary housing, cash and anything that they need.” 

Jail Support started as a care center hub for protesters during the George Floyd protests in Charlotte. Protesters could stop by anytime for first aid care, snacks, water, rides home and emotional support. Jail Support is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because the arrested protesters can be released from jail at any given time. Jail Support volunteers cheer on the recently released protesters and make sure they are taken care of upon release. 

Additionally, Jail Support runs a hotline that protesters can call if they are arrested, and a bail fund to help them be released from jail. 

Since its beginning, Jail Support has evolved in many ways and now serves more than just protesters. It provides services to the disabled, the homeless, inmates in jail, recently released prisoners, and anyone that walks up to ask for help.

Jail Support is fully funded and supported by the community, with no grants or donations from government entities. It receives all of its supplies and funding through crowdsourcing donations. It also hosts various supply drops throughout Charlotte, where people can donate supplies. 

Beyond the prison gates

Another goal of the Jail Support community is to defund and eventually eradicate the police system. 

“The direct response for the police locking people up and throwing them in cages is Jail Support,” volunteer Ke-TayJah Morris said. “Jail Support could not exist without jails. The only way we’re ever going to stop providing these services is when the prison system is abolished. Until then, our people need us.”

As police officers walk by the tents, volunteers scream the Migos song “F*ck 12” at the top of their lungs to express their disdain and distrust with police. Sometimes, the radical words of N.W.A’s “F— Tha Police”  blare through the loudspeakers as volunteers sing along. 

Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden has adamantly worked toward the removal of Jail Support’s tents and services. On June 18, McFadden gave the Jail Support crew four hours of notice to remove its tents and relocate by 2 p.m. 

The volunteers refused to leave and held a sit-in instead. They posted on social media sites and asked for as many bodies as possible to come to the Jail Support site.

Hundreds of people gathered to protest the removal of Jail Support. Squad cars and paddy wagons multiplied, filling every space on the one-lane street. At around 2 p.m., it seemed like the entire Sheriff’s department was at Jail Support – there were about two officers for every protester. 

Then, blue and red lights flashed and a loudspeaker turned on. 

“We have requested for you all to move,” a police officer said. “We are giving you all a few minutes to disperse before we take action.”

The words echoed for minutes. 

Still, the protesters remained, prepared for whatever came next.

“Our work is essential, just like you think yours is,” Charlotte Uprising leader Glo Merriweather said. “You requested us to move and we denied your request.”  

Immediately, the officers swarmed in like a pack of wolves. Armed with zip ties and handcuffs, they circled around the protesters.

In the blink of an eye, the officers started grabbing protesters, pinned them to the ground and arrested them.

That day, 43 protesters were arrested for trespassing, but with the help of Jail Support’s hotline, all of them were bailed out of jail.

Advocating for more

The arrests were only a minor setback for the Jail Support group – they didn’t let this interfere with their work.

After the mass arrest of volunteers, Williams called for the crew to move their tents and supplies from in front of the jail to across the street. 

“We need Jail Support,” Williams said. “Jail Support is essential because no one else is doing it.”

McFadden claimed that he holds his own jail support through a re-entry program for recently released inmates. He said that it provides housing, clothes and job resources. 

The Jail Support team does not think his program is enough. 

“I’m not sure what McFadden means by his re-entry program because literally, inmates who have been released always come to Jail Support asking for help,” volunteer Mariah Davis said. “And there are so many times that I’ve seen people walk out of that jail without shoes on their feet. You know how dangerous it is to walk outside without shoes? People are released in blue paper shirts or sometimes no shirt at all. Their basic necessities are being stripped away from them inside that jail and they don’t get the proper support after serving their time.” 

Since opening, Jail Support has helped thousands of released inmates and has bailed out over 200 people in the Charlotte area. 

The Jail Support team does not plan to move their tents or supply bins anytime soon. 

 Edited by Anne Tate

 

By Britney Nguyen

When he’s not playing Fortnite and talking with his friends, 11-year-old Grayson McBride is in his kitchen making his fancy homemade mac and cheese or coming up with ways to improve the recipe on the back of a box of Ghirardelli brownie mix.

Grayson logs on to FaceTime at 11 a.m. once every two weeks, from his home in Crofton, Maryland, to start his one-hour cooking lesson with Chef Alex Colaianni who is based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Since mid-May, the two have met to cook together over video call.

“A big part of being a chef is we teach all the time,” Colaianni said. “I wasn’t teaching anyone how to cook, so I thought I’d give this a try. I’ve never done it this way.”

Grayson was 10 when he was introduced to Colaianni. At the first meeting, Colaianni interviewed Grayson so he could understand what his parents meant when they told him about their son who loves to cook.

Though Grayson was shy at first, Colaianni was able to warm Grayson up pretty quickly, and the two immediately had a connection. Colaianni said he loves working with kids, and that it reminds him, at 58 years old, what it was like to be 10 or 11.

Though Grayson was shy at first, he quickly warmed up to Colaianni, and the two immediately bonded. Colaianni said he loves working with kids and that it reminds him, at 58 years old, what it was like to be 10 or 11.

“There’s a point when you’re trying to be a chef and say, ‘do this right, and do that right,’” said Colaianni, “then you just look on the screen and go, ‘Oh, I remember that kid. That was me.’”

The makings of a chef

Scott McBride, Grayson’s father, said that when restaurants started closing down because of COVID-19, the family started cooking from home.

“What we tried to do is involve the kids, and we wanted the kids to take some ownership of the cooking process,” McBride said.

The first time Grayson had cooked for his family was two years ago when he made crescent roll pizza pockets. McBride said he and his wife, April, also noticed that Grayson enjoyed when he would make brownies and cookies.

Around the same time, the restaurant where Colaianni worked closed in March due to COVID-19. Being stuck at home created a gap in his schedule, and an opportunity in Grayson’s.

Colaianni said that Grayson’s unique experience reminded him of his 30-something year career. “One or two key moments stand out, and all of them had to do with access to someone I could learn from,” he said.

Preparation and instruction

The cooking duo were introduced after McBride and Marshele Carter, Colaianni’s wife, reconnected in March. They met in 2013 through the master’s program at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media after McBride’s advisor connected them because of his Coast Guard scholarship and their shared military background.

McBride said that when they called each other to check in, Carter told him that her husband, whom she married in November 2019, was a chef.

“We were like, ‘How cool would it be if maybe Alex can teach Grayson during COVID virtually over FaceTime?’” McBride said.

McBride said Carter loved the idea, so they set up the first call in early April to introduce Colaianni to Grayson.

Colaianni said that at the time, he had a menu plan for a restaurant he was planning to open, so he sent the menu to Grayson and told him to research all of the items on the menu. Grayson had to research definitions, cooking styles and origins of food on the menu.

On May 15, Grayson and Colaianni had their first virtual cooking lesson. Grayson learned how to make an omelet, the first thing every chef learns how to make in culinary school.

“It teaches you to manage the heat of your pan,” Grayson said. “I learned that for omelets, you never want to put butter to make your pan not stick, because the butter will brown before the omelet can cook.”

For each of the following lessons, Colaianni would send Grayson a recipe to do research on, then send Grayson’s mom a shopping list with ingredients and tools he would need to prepare the meal.

Since the first lesson, Grayson has learned how to make burgers in a pan, how to roast a whole chicken and how to make mac and cheese with mozzarella, cheddar and brie.

The Final Test

On August 1, Colaianni and Carter visited Grayson’s house to prepare for a 3-hour cooking session for the first time in the same kitchen.

Colaianni and Grayson cooked multiple recipes at the same time while McBride, with the role of sous chef, was trying to keep up.

Grayson and Colaianni served a dinner buffet to Carter, Grayson’s father and mother, his 14-year-old brother Connor, his maternal grandparents and his aunt.

“It was steak asiago on arugula salad, pesto without pine nuts, because me and my brother are allergic, chicken salad with sunflower seeds and golden raisins, caprese salad, roasted Tuscan vegetables, guacamole, salsa and chips and my mac and cheese,” Grayson said.

At the dinner, Colaianni gave Grayson a real chef’s jacket, black with his name embroidered on his left side in neat white letters.

“He got to feel the ultimate thing, which is looking at the faces of the people you’re cooking for and watching them eat your food and seeing how happy they were,” Colaianni said. “He got to be proud.”

Next on the menu…

One of the lessons Grayson learned from Colaianni is that a cook follows recipes, but a chef makes recipes. McBride said Grayson naturally likes to experiment with food.

McBride and Carter wanted to give Colaianni good publicity to thank him for his dedication to teaching Grayson, so they reached out to an adjunct professor in the UNC Hussman School who had contacts at Spectrum News.

On September 3, Grayson and Colaianni’s FaceTime cooking lesson was filmed by a Spectrum News reporter, and Grayson was interviewed for television.

“I’m the chief of media for the Coast Guard so I prepare admirals to speak all the time, but preparing Grayson for that interview was my hardest one,” McBride said.

Although it seems as though Grayson is on track for a promising career as a chef, he’s still only a kid focused on playing flag football, Boy Scouts, swimming and playing percussion in the school band.

“I really have no idea what I want to be when I grow up,” Grayson said.

McBride said it has been an amazing experience watching Grayson grow with Colaianni.

“Alex said that if you want to be a chef, you have to love cooking for others,” McBride said. “Grayson loves that.”

 

Edited by Evan Castillo