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Welcome to Freedom and Glory: Tales of American Spirit—a podcast celebrating the heart of American craftsmanship, resilience, self-reliance, and the power of disruption. Through inspiring stories and authentic storytelling, we shine a spotlight on individuals and communities who embody these values, proving that small, determined efforts can spark meaningful change.
Join us as we share personal tales of triumph, innovation, and hope—moments that define the American spirit and shape our nation’s identity. Whether you’re seeking motivation to pursue your dreams or a reminder of the power of community, Freedom and Glory offers a powerful dose of inspiration rooted in resilience and determination.
Listen, be inspired, and take action.
Welcome to Freedom and Glory Tales of American Spirit where every flag tells a story, and so does every person who raises one join Liz Morris and Bill Lume for conversations with people making a difference in their communities, reminding us that even the smallest actions can spark lasting change.
[00:00:26] Default_2026-02-09_9: Today. Thank you so much for joining us. This is Turquoise Parker. Yeah. Um, she's an educator in community leader in Durham, North Carolina, and she's the founder of Bull City Food Raiser.
A grassroots effort that began with helping a single student's family and has grown into a huge program that I'm so excited to hear more about. And, um, her story is a powerful reminder of how noticing one need and choosing to act can create lasting change across the community. So thanks for being here.
To thank y'all for the invitation. I feel special. You are special. Yes, absolutely. I feel special. Well, can you, um, tar start by telling us about yourself and also definitely where you got those beautiful frames. Let me see. What do I have over? My frames are from Z Lu. Okay. And I do not wear lenses in my frames because I see better without lenses.
I'm just for the aesthetics here. Oh, they look great. Thank you. But Zulu, and they're not expensive either, so hit 'em up. I'm not I'm not a paid. Advertiser either, but they can if they want. I am the media coordinator at Lakewood Elementary School in Durham, North Carolina. This is my 15th year teaching and my 11th year in Durham Public Schools.
Absolutely love it. Don't wanna do another job. I, I just, I love it. The kids. Just amazing. And this is my the end of my, well in September, will be the end of my sixth year as the NEA director for North Carolina. So I serve on the board of directors for the National Education Association and the North Carolina Association of Educators.
So I am just a little busy, nothing too major. Um, but this engagement along the way is what has brought the, been able to bring the food razor to the. Expansive, mind blowing, unimaginative, if that's the word level that I've, I never imagined it would be. It started, as you said, it started in 2015 when one family, a mom came to me, I was in my classroom after school and she came in asking if there's anywhere I knew that she could get food for the kids for a while.
We would be out for that two week winter break. And that is just ridiculous in this country that people are trying to figure out a way to get food for a two week break when school is closed. Like that's, that's just outrageous. And so I, my husband and I took care of their, made sure they had gifts, food, all the things.
And then the Lord just continued to press on my spirit that if one family is experiencing this, there are probably countless more. So I sent out a text message. My friends call those Turk alerts, which signals that there's something going on that we need to pay attention to, send a message. And within about 36 hours, I received enough to be able to send all 22 of my students home with a bag of groceries and a gift for winter break, just in like a few hours.
And that's not me, that's just the heart of the community. And the next year it grew to being able to, we raised about a thousand some dollars, so we were able to do the whole third grade. In 2017, we raised about 2000 ish dollars, and we were able to do two grade levels every child in two grade levels.
2018, we raised about 5,000, $6,000, and we were able to feed my whole school every child at our school. 2019, we raised about. 13, $14,000 and we were able to do every child at three schools. 2020, we raised about 50,000, so we were able to do seven schools. 2021 is when it really exploded, and we did a hundred.
And $3,000. Wow. My gosh. And we were able to do 12 elementary schools, every child at 12 elementary schools. So that equals out to about 5,000 ish bags of food. Each bag weighs, I think it's about 13 pounds, something like that. And since then we've been able to do it for winter break and spring break.
Those times are chosen because those are the two times that schools are closed. Food and nutrition services are closed. So those times are just tough. But in the summertime. School districts have satellite locations and even sometimes every school is a spot where students families can go to get food. So that's just my heart's work and I'm not by myself on this one.
Lord knows I can't. It is a lot of hands, a lot of hearts, a lot of minds. Were you surprised at the need? I mean, seriously? Well, I, there are a lot of things I bet you're surprised at, but just the initial need that is there within the school system. I, I was not only because I grew up as a single of a, the pro, my mom was a single mom.
Mm-hmm. And so I understood this. My mom was a single mom and she was an educator in North Carolina, so she was not getting paid really what she deserved. So she was trying to literally make ends meet. And it was something about that not knowing what I was going through. My mom handled it with so much grace that I never knew.
But then there's that magical thing called growing up and becoming an adult. I just don't know why we have to do that. But you grow up, you see these things happening and, and then recollection like, wow. I think that might've been my lived experience, but I never knew it. You never knew you were poor. Yeah, I mean, I won't say we were poor.
No, but I never knew that the need was truly there and it was. I just didn't know because my mom polished everything so well, and in retrospect I'm like, how did you do that? You know? But I see this need in my students every day because relationships are everything. Being in community with their families, I'm allowed to see a beautiful look into their lives and the needs that they have, that they genuinely need support filling those, those voids and gaps.
Cool. Are, are kids pretty open with teachers versus parents? I mean, do you get a snapshot of. The child, maybe one a parent doesn't even see. But you know, I think as a parent myself, we tend to assume things of our kids. Well, they like you, you're young, you, you don't know what's really going on. But you know, these kids are smart today a lot's smarter than I think we give them credit for.
So, I mean, what, what kinds of things do you hear? I mean, and the only reason I bring it up is because it's teachers play such an important role in what you've done. Hopefully could be mirrored in other schools across the country, that'd be awesome. But yes. What are your thoughts on that? I believe wholeheartedly that relationships is ev they, they are everything.
You cannot trust somebody who you don't know, and if I don't know the real you, then I don't really want to be around you. I'm definitely not getting ready to be vulnerable with you to let you know my needs, but that's just, it's December. When that, when that mom came to me, it was December. We were just days away.
So that meant I had just started teaching her child in August. That meant we had already had Preport card. We had just met an open house, and then we had our first quarter report card conference, and then we had our class fall festival, and then we had our class Thanksgiving dinner. So I had multiple opportunities to be in community and get to know them, and them get to know me.
All of those things are unassuming. Just being so we can, we're a, we're a class, we're a community. We spend seven hours a day every day. We better learn how to like each other. So we get this, we get these opportunities, and I want the kids and their families to be in that learning community where they are so they can feel it, and they see that I am organizing this around them.
And so they're like, you know what? This lady might not be as woo woo as we think. Like she might actually like these kids. And, and I, I trust her. So we had many opportunities to build a relationship over those August, September, October, November. For her to eventually open up to me and share a great need.
And that's just not something that kids or adults are going to do, which is why I said the, which is why I think that the Lord just kept pressing my spirit. 'cause there are so many reasons why people don't share their need. Many reasons. And we can't always blame it on like pride, like it's just a lot of reasons.
And so. You can have relationship and still not wanna ask, but it's necessary because you need it. You know, talking about teaching a lesson, I do a very foundational financial literacy lesson, and two of the biggest things are needs and wants and having kids understand needs and wants, earning and giving.
And those four words hold a lot of weight. But I tell all of those, tell my kids those four words. Relationship is at the core of those because you're gonna need people to get your needs, to get your wants, goods, services, earnings saving. Like you're gonna need that. You're gonna need relationship because you're gonna need, and I'm gonna need, we need each other to survive.
And that's, I don't, I don't want anything from you if I can't trust you and you, I learn how to trust you if we're in relationship with each other. Yeah. Relationships are everything. They, they learn that as a, through you as a media coordinator or what? I, now, I'm just so curious. I love that message. So I started, when I started the food raise, I was teaching second grade only, and then I, and I had came from teaching four and a half years in the Chapel Hill Carbo City schools.
Came to Durham Public Schools and I came as a second grade teacher and I loved it. Second grade is probably the best grade. I always say that. I'm not sure if it's God's will for my life to teach humans past 11. 'cause woo, they become somebody totally different come January. I don't know who they are.
Mm-hmm. But second grade, I'm with them all day. And then the third grade, then I taught fifth grade. I came back down to second grade, and then I became media coordinator. Media coordinator. My position is used more as a teaching position, so I'm on a fixed schedule along with art, music, pe. Teach the whole school.
Wow. So I know, I would say my colleagues and I like my specialist teammate, my art team, art teacher teammate, music teacher, teammate, my PE teacher teammate, and my Spanish teacher teammate. I would say we know about 97% of the students in the school, and our school is about 440 ish kids. So. You know, it's nothing to walk around and be like, and you know, they're getting out the car, streaming down the hallway and I mean like, Hey, good morning, good morning, good morning.
Insert name, good morning, insert names. Sometimes I shock myself that I know that many names, but it's that opportunity to come in and they have to like your class too. So the class starts off with this mantra, this affirmation that I've been doing for about. 10, about 12 years now, where it's call and response first, where it's like a series of questions.
What type of practice? Practice makes excellence. What do you always do? Step your game up. What are you, I am a leader. What do you never do? Never give up. And then it's like a couple more questions. Then it goes into a. In chorus they say, I'm creative. I am gifted. I am excited about my future. I am a leader.
I am a scholar. I am valuable and worthy. I am greatness. And greatness follows me everywhere I go. I am awesome. I take my education seriously because it is the most powerful weapon I have. My education will change the world. No one will stop me from achieving my goals. I am going to graduate from high school.
I am going to graduate from NCCU because they know they have to go to North Carolina Central University. I am Durham's future and I am growing, and every child at Lakewood Elementary says that every time they come to my class. That's how you build relationship and that's how you build trust and community and love and respect.
Because they know I believe in you. And then I'm saying this with you. So you saying this to me, I'm saying this to you. We got something special here. We can move mountains. There's not gonna be a pop quiz is there for you. Yeah. Yeah. See, I knew it. I knew. I've never been to teacher's pet that like I watched, I was watching you too.
Yeah. I was trying to pay attention. But getting back on what you've accomplished because all of this is done through a relationship. So for someone else, I mean. Forget that. How did you do that? Because you're totally reliant on other people for everything. Right? So how'd you do that? And I'll take notes.
You should. Yeah. I don't, I don't hide a thing because there are, this is something that is needed in every community, so I, I have no need to hide and everybody can't do everything. So it started. I put a, I sent a text message out to everybody in my phone that said and I have a screenshot of it from my friend who I sent and was like, Hey, I'm trying to send my kids home with food for Christmas break.
Can you anything? Cheerios, lucky Charms. Chef Boyard, D oatmeal, anything. If you could drop it by my classroom by Thursday at two o'clock, I can bag it up, get it to them on Friday. And the community responded. One person in particular, his name is t Greg Doucette, he's a local attorney in Durham. He and I had met two, no, yeah, a couple of months before that.
Um, a couple we met through some political work that we were doing. And he was one of the people I sent a text message to and it really tugged at his heartstrings. And so he, again, relationships are everything. So he used his connections by spreading it through his social media accounts. Then I was spreading it through mine.
Another person saw it and shared it and shared it. And I mean, the genuineness of wanting to make sure kids are fed is not something that's like. Lemme see. Yeah, nobody's gonna debate you on that. Like, I don't know about that. I just wanna make sure kids have food for winter break. Simple. I'm not asking you for a gift card to give these families.
Now if you want to do that, I will make sure they get it, but I'm just asking for food. Greg and I did that one more year, and then we realized, Greg, you know, he just continued to stay like with me on this journey and my husband. Was there all the time, and I'm not even dragging him along. He's feeling this too.
Like if it's good, if it's a cause for you, it's a cause for me, so let's do it. The three of us were like, you know what? Let's not worry about getting food donations anymore. Let's just raise money. We raised money and we just did a GoFundMe. We sent out, this is the PayPal link we sent out Cash App. This is Venmo, like anything you can give.
And then we had folks just so in awe that they were like, well, I'll match. And I'm like, I don't even know you, but thank you. And then one of the items in the bag was go-go squeeze. And one of the kids mentioned, whoa, I've always wanted to have go-go squeeze. Only rich people get go-go squeeze. And that just, that's it's applesauce.
It's a brand of applesauce. That's just how capitalism works in this world, to where you see like, whoa, so go-go squeeze, heard that, and all of a sudden I got an email and go-Go Squeeze, partnered with us. And they sent pallets and pallets of applesauce for. I don't know how many years. And then someone tagged Costco.
Costco provided a bunch of book bags. They donated like their U-Haul services, um, home Depot, no, Lowe's. They sent several of their staff members just to volunteer. I could keep going with the amount of like community support. It's, it's, it's nowhere to get, it is no way we get there without community support.
Well, logistically. Okay. That was a good question coming. I bet you wanna talk about that logistics. Well, I, I heard your, your opening and you, you went from, you know, a thousand to now, well over a hundred thousand, probably more than that at this point. But that buys food. Mm-hmm. Someone's gotta distribute it.
It's gotta get to all these kids in all these schools. Oh yeah. So how do you accomplish that? Oh, y'all gotta come. It looks like a baby. Costco. I'm not even joking. Like I will. I will show you the pictures or videos. It looks like a baby Costco. You walk in the door and as soon as you walk in, first of all, all the packing is done at my school in the gym.
Shout out to my principal. Yeah, and the custodians and it 'cause it shuts down the parking, one of the parking lots at the school. It shuts down the gym and the cafeteria for four days. Because what happens is you walk in the gym on the right, there's the big wall of Cheerios, so you're talking about like 5,000 boxes of Cheerios in an elementary school gym, not a middle or a high school gym.
Yeah. Then you have palace of peanut butter. Then there's green beans, baked beans, green, green beans, baked beans, black beans, corn. Then there's chicken, tuna, mashed potatoes. Mac and cheese, oatmeal. What's another one? Um, the, well, do you have people come in and they load their own bags? Yes. So it's a, it is down, it's like a shopping experience.
It is down to a logistics. Like the bag has to even be stacked a certain way because we measure them. We have like four U-Haul outside, outside, and we put like, the bags have to be stacked like. Literally the, the cereal has to be at the back. The peanut butter has to be on the right side of the cereal.
The corn has to be on top of the peanut butter. It's a, because we learn how many bags go across and how many go down based off of the slimness of the bag, and then we know that. For example Bethesda Elementary School has 375 students. That means we can say, when we take the U-Haul, take the whole bottom leave, take the first 13 rows, leave six and the top.
And we know that because of how the bags are packed Now. The volunteers. That's how this happened. So there are SGAs from like the local high schools, the basketball varsity and junior varsity basketball boys basketball team at Southern Durham High School. They are my rock stars. Those are my rocks. They come in there and just, they are amazing.
I mean, fraternities, sororities church groups. Marching bands students from my alma mater, North Carolina Central students from Duke. They're, both of those campuses are close. I mean, it's. It's amazing. I post it far and wide and my social media pages are pretty public, so it just, and I don't mind people sharing it, and so it's grown from us struggling to make it happen in five days to this year.
We finished packing 5,000 bags in two days. Wow. Oh my gosh. Wow. There were, we totaled about 1000 volunteers. Well, in December. That's a lot of love. Really. That's a lot of love like that. I, I wrote on one of the bags the first, like one of the years we had to deliver them to their doors and I wrote Love Mrs.
Parker and a whole lot of people because it's not just me. I, I would never take credit for it was an, it was my idea, but I just am grateful for people believing in, in this vision. Yeah. That is, that is an awesome story. I, I know it sounded like you also work for the, the state or what was the, the, any, the N-E-A-N-E-A.
Yeah. Yes. I mean, is there, I mean, are they supportive or are they, how, how? I don't know how, how did they also lift all this up or, so this year in particular, we've, I mean, the more that they have looked at the story, the NEA, you know, offers these different platforms that I'm allowed to be, I'm offered the opportunity to step onto, to share this because it is definitely, again, it's getting food in.
Family's hands again, like you can't, there's nothing. It's food. What? Yeah. Not political. Not, no. Yeah. You know, there's, it's nothing political about, I mean, there is, but getting kids food. Just give the money and get the food, like, and so the ne EA has been so supportive, has definitely lifted up this project and has, has introduced me to different.
People who have different organizations who want to match and who have just a large platform who just will share. That's get, that gets a lot of, um, it's gotten me a lot of opportunities on Capitol Hill to lobby mm-hmm. Our elected officials to let them know what's happening and how this continues to just, the kids at elementary school, they only get bigger.
They go to middle school and they go to high school and that need, unfortunately, the way that capitalism works in the, these United States, that need doesn't stop. When they get promoted to sixth grade, those demographics shift to the middle school and then they shift to the high school. And so since the food raiser has been able to grow, we've been able to support.
A few middle schools and a few high schools where the demographics of those 12 elementary schools have just shifted to the higher levels. And the 12 elementary schools we choose are schools whose free and reduced meal rate is at 90% or higher. Wow. Now, Durham Public Schools, and I can't remember the fancy acronym.
Durham Public Schools has I cannot remember the name of it, but it's allotted to where no child pays for breakfast or lunch at all anymore. But those, the data, it can still be ripped apart and like found raw data that these schools still need like a significant amount of support. And again, the, the need, the economic need just continues to.
Pass along. It's an, it's an incredible injustice that this is what families are feeling at the holidays. Yeah. Mind also the pressure of providing gifts at a time where it's tough, you know, and it's not even just sometimes families like we think that don't have, like my mom example, my mother, two, three master's degrees, single mom, and she's still like trying to piece things together.
And a bag like this certainly would've been helpful. You think about there are educators, paraprofessionals, our bus drivers, custodians, data managers, cafeteria staff, our literacy coaches, second grade teachers who also could use one of these bags too, because we are stretching as well. And if you think about a family who has like three kids at one of those schools.
That's three bags that they're getting that's, that's gonna help, that's gonna put a nice little dent, you know. Yeah. In our, in our pantry, in our refrigerator. So what's your, what's your goal from here then? And obviously it's growing every year. Yeah. I wanna be able to keep doing this at winter break, spring break.
And then I'd like to be able to cover the entire middle school. Like, 'cause right now, when we do the middle and high schools, there's just, we don't get every child at the school. We get to do just a small portion. But I'd really, really like to do the middle schools and high schools that have the, the same matching need.
But all the kids, because I know we took. Them to one of the middle schools and all the bags got taken and one of the teachers reached out and said, her student was like, are there any more of those bags left? Ooh, that's tough. And they were all gone. And so my, my hope and prayer is that we can get middle school and high school done completely.
Just like we get those 12 elementary schools and you know, first Durham, then North Carolina, and then the country. I like that. Big plants. Mm-hmm. It can happen. What message are you, um, or what are you lobbying for on Capitol Hill? At this and, and I'll be up there on Thursday. Nice. Okay. I'll be up there on Thursday.
But the, the main thing that we are listening to, because that's the beautiful part, you know, I watched a, a document other day that was talking about sometimes. I wanna say it was septa. MCC Clark mentioned the loudest leader in the room is sometimes the most quiet person because they understand how to listen.
And then you take that lesson and you teach it, you listen that turn, that listening into a lesson and teach it. And that's what going to those lobby days are. So sharing the message that we have a lot of families, we have to look at this immigration topic, especially in this area of North Carolina. We have to make sure that we look at a cost of living adjustment for our retirees because then they fall in that category of who might need a bag of food as well.
And then we're looking at. An actual pay bump for our education support professionals like our groundskeepers. Speaking of this weather and how they were working around the clock to clear these school parking lots. And they're not a hundred man front, you know, staff trying to clear, especially a county like Wake County, that's a lot of property for how many staff members, you know.
So thinking about understanding, reminding, you know, our elected officials, one job should be enough. And then we have of course, our historically black colleges and universities making sure that they are not, the funding is not ripped from them. And then of course, there's always, always like public education, child hunger.
'cause again, that just should not happen in the United States. We're not talking about. A new Apple watch or a new phone or a new pair of shoes, we are simply talking about food and the food. And you know, even just stepping back a little bit, the food in those bags is intentional. It's not just something thrown in there.
It's intentional that no matter you're living circumstances, you can use that food in that. And you don't need a a, a stove for any of it. You can use it the microwave. You can eat, you know that that stuff in there is, you don't need a stove at all because it is just important that families have what they need.
And that's the main purpose of lobbying is making sure families have what they need and. Listening, going back to relationships, listening, taking those, lifting those stories up to people who have decision making power that impacts millions of people. And I think I would say for sure that I see the faces of, you know, the 400 and something kids at my school when I'm up there and their families and I just.
I'm encouraged 'cause those buildings are huge and those steps are a lot. And Capitol Hill is not a little, it's not a little walk through the mall. It's a nice, you know, I'm encouraged though. Listen, looking, just thinking about their faces and their stories and how. They love school, they love their teachers, their bus driver, their cafeteria workers, and making sure that I'm up there fighting for them.
And as my colleagues, I think about them too. I want them to stay, so let me advocate for them too so that positions don't get cut. You know, it's a, it is a beautiful opportunity. I mean, the other thing too is people sending grant opportunities too. I've been able to get, apply for grants to go towards the food raise, and people are just generous when they see that this is a very genuine initiative.
They're like, yes, let's, yeah. Well. You're very passionate, um, and inspiring, I think. Thank for sure. So I feel like that energy has, um, brought those people around you that have made this possible. For sure. But that's cool. I think, you know, people on Capitol Hill are just people too. Mm-hmm. And, um, I feel like it probably is really impactful that you're going up there and sharing.
Um, well, I, I, I think I read that you also were honored with a presidential lifetime achievement, or the food raiser, or, I, I wanna hear about how that came about and I thought it was spam when I got the, I was. Are you sure you meant me? Like I'm just a little, a little li I'm just a little librarian in Durham, like at an elementary school, I, I genuinely thought it was spam and not like a yay me.
But it's similar to how my husband and I were invited on a game show because of the food raiser. This game show called The Wall. And the wall is not a show where you can you can like submit an application to go on there. Okay? You have to be invited and they invite people who've done something significant in their community.
And when I got that email, I didn't respond similar to the one about the Presidentials award because I thought it was spam. Like nobody is sending me an email to be on a game show and certainly not for the president of the United States to honor me get outta here. Similarly to when I got the, the email about being on CNNI was like.
Who is hacking my stuff. And then it just came and then, I mean, now the David, I think you pronounce it Muir David Muir on World News tonight. That one had me like, okay, I was just answering questions like I thought it would just be an article. And then they were like, yeah, you should tune in at this specific time.
And then they're like one teacher quietly working in her classroom. Durham, North Carolina. I was like, they got me. That's me. They got me. But I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm shocked. I mean, I'm just a teacher. I'm not, I'm not like, I don't know. I'm just a teacher, you know, I'm not doing anything that's anything that's amazing.
I'm just making sure I help people and I'm just grateful. I can't believe it a lot of the times and I'm also I always compare it to mean girls. The end of mean girls win. I forgot, I think it was Regina. George. Regina and she broke the crown and was like throwing pieces of the crown, like this belongs to all of us.
'cause I'm like, I don't do this thing by myself. I'm serious. Y'all have to see these pictures and videos. This is amazing. Amazing. But I just am always shocked, and I'm a shy person. I'm just kidding. But I was gonna say, wait a minute, but for real I am like, this is weird. They're talking about me. But it's, it's very humbling and it's it's it feels good because it does make you feel like somebody sees, sees you and they see the people that work with you.
And I always try to make sure that I don't. Take the credit for it because it's a, it's, it's a team and, and it's, it's not me. It's, it's just a team. I just had the idea. Yeah. I bet a lot of people are good people, but they stand on the side and it does take. A little something to get out there and you, you picked up the ball and ran with it.
Probably a bad sports analogy, but you get the No, no. I think you get what I'm saying. I like to think I'm a, a, a basketball player. Really? Yeah. Good. In my mind, I'm six four. I know. Me too. In my mind, I'm six four. I mean, yeah, we can talk about the reality that I might be what, five? Some. But look at what you've accomplished and the great things you're doing and your students have learned from you.
Not only. Through your words, but your actions, and hopefully they'll take that with them as well. So you have no idea where this might be 10 years from now they, well, maybe you do. You did save the United. I love it. They get to be a part of it too. Like they get to come and help pack bags too. So they are, they have some agency in this as well.
Yeah. Very cool. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I bet they feel really important. They do. Helping you and Yeah. And every time the news comes, I'm like, come on, y'all get up here. And one of the, the first year when I was at Glen Elementary School, that was the year 2018. Yes. And that was the year we were able to do the whole school.
And I don't remember which News Station covered the story and the kids were in the interview with me. One of those students that was in that interview, she goes to Southern High School and Southern Southern Durham High School just supports the food raiser there. They send their SGA, they send their basketball team, their cheerleaders, the, the, all the clubs.
And she was like, one of the counselors from the school said, I think one of my students knows you. And it was one of my students who was in that news interview and she was in fifth grade. Now she's a senior in high school. Wow. And she helped then. And then she's a senior coming back to help now. And I just, I was, you know.
I, I have a, I could cry real easy, so Yeah. That had to make you feel great. Yeah. Yeah. It's changed. A life isn't, it's beautiful. Like, that's so cool. Do you think I'm, are your favorite yet? I don't want to take a pop quiz. No, I sincerely, I really did mean it. I mean, it's that's gotta be an amazing feeling.
It's, it really is so beautiful. So how can. How can you know people tuning in, how can they get involved? How can they support you all or, oh, follow me, follow along me On social media? Yeah, follow me on social media. My name on Facebook, turquoise Legune Parker. And on Instagram, my name is, oh, gorgeous.
One. Okay, you have to go. Oh, gorgeous one. That's it. Very nice. Now that's the pop quiz. Okay. Oh, gorgeous One. And then you, I, I, I don't, that's how a lot of people find out is following me on social media just to make sure that it's available because I need, I want people to know and show up and people want to.
That's the beautiful part about it. It feels like, I mean, and I have a good playlist. I just wanna shout myself out so it's loud music. It's not too loud, but too overstimulating. But it's loud music, good playlist, and everybody is just happy. Like it's, everybody is just happy to be there. So it feels good.
And everybody's like. Just looking like it's, um, I don't even know. I feel like I'm in like sister Act two at the end when they were like joyful, joyful, and everybody is just excited. It's, it's so cool. I love it. Oh, oh, gorgeous one. Well, you didn't do the hinges. Oh, to the left. I would've failed a pop. See, this is why she the I not, this is, she's the one that says, are we gonna have a test when the teacher forgot and you can't even look on her paper.
No. This is what a good teammate is though. Yeah. I still like the glasses without the glass. I mean, you know, it's a thing. It is a thing, and then you have to go, well, you made it a thing. See, I, yeah, you can still use, you know, take them off. Mm-hmm. My favorite is when I go like this, like, I really need
This, this, this is really something that I just, I didn't, it sounds cliche, but I really just never saw it becoming this. I'm like, well, I think it's gonna get bigger. I think, you know, it is too. So I, I do hope because it's, and it is, it's impact. I just want it to, I want that impact to spread. Yeah. It will un undoubtedly.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. You got it. Yep. Yep. Do you have any, can't wait to go home and tell my wife I interviewed old, gorgeous one. There you go. That that comes from the TV show, the nineties TV show. A different world. That's like the theme of She'll know it. She'll know it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's the theme of me and my husband our lives, is that show and one of the, some of my friends from college started calling me that and then I was like, you know what? Just worse names. So my students, my students call me that Miss. Oh, gorgeous one. Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I love that. Well, do you have any advice for anyone, you know, if they wanna start something similar or what, what would you tell them?
Please be genuine about what you're doing. It's, I didn't ask for, you know, to be. On WREL or CBS or CNNI. I didn't ask for any of that. This was a very genuine start to help people, and that's all that I ask of anybody who wants to do anything is to just be genuine and not try to have any type of gain, selfish ambition or gained from this personally.
Helping people. And if you really wanna help people, then relationships. You, I just can't say that word enough. Like if you really wanna help people, you will know the people and you will know what it is that they need. But when you try to start making it about yourself, you lose that connection. And then you're getting, you're doing things for people who don't need that.
'cause you've forgotten that we're here for actual. Human beings and I, I just, that's the biggest thing is be genuine. When you're genuine about something, the things will happen. And it doesn't have to be $106,000. I didn't see it getting there. It was, I was amazed at us being able to do 20 families and I would have been.
Grateful to be able to do 20 every year, but that's just not what the Lord saw fit, obviously. And so we have a whole situation, like we also have to get like a whole separate dumpster for those days 'cause it's a lot of trash. Um, we have to get like an entire team to drive these U-Haul to the schools.
It's, it's, it's quite the deal. Oh, yes. Yeah. It's a serious team. Like there's a core people who, who come around me to just kind of help me think through all of this. Like it's, and, and a great, my principal and assistant principal are phenomenal. She, my principal gives me leave days for those days so that I can run the food razor and not have to try to teach and run the food razor.
So that type of support. Like it's 'cause she sees it as it's just a genuine need and kids can't learn. If they're hungry, they can't. It's just the reality. So that's my only ask is that if people do something, do it because you really wanna do it for someone else. Like you genuinely wanna do it. Don't do it for yourself, for your glory, for your face.
On the flyer, there's, is it, is it about the people or is it about you? If the moment it becomes about you, that's when everything is, is nothing will prosper. And it's about people, real people, real people helping real people. That could be a lyric of a song. Mm-hmm. Couldn't it? I mean, that's really good.
Real people helping real people. Real people. Yeah. Well, that's awesome. That's good advice. It really is. Anything you, anything anybody decides to do, whether it be you wanna collect. Ooh. Um, um, shoes and you wanna make sure that you know, or glass for eyeglasses. I'm, you know, for people who ared, I'm just saying old, gorgeous one.
I'm just saying whatever it is that you wanna do, whatever need or gap or void you're trying to fill, yeah, just make sure that you're genuine. Cool. Thank you so much for joining us and it was, yeah, thank y'all. Awesome having you on and this is cool. We really appreciate it. I'll definitely be following along and Okay.
Um, yeah, what you're doing is awesome. Thank you. Really is awesome. Is we actually, so spring break. Doesn't it move for all those schools? Well, for Durham Public Schools, they're all the same. They're all the same. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. Okay. I was thinking about, yeah, some of my friends and then they all have different spring breaks.
Yeah. For Durham Public School, it's all the same. Especially like the year round schools. They are on our track. We only have one track of year round schools in Durham, so they're all, we're all on the same track, so it's all, now when we start moving to North Carolina. You hear that? Yeah. That prophetically when we start moving to doing the whole state, now we gonna have to figure out.
Yeah, yeah. 'cause mine's in year round, so it's Right. We're gonna have to figure some stuff out. She some tension off more than the room, but right. Yeah. We, All right. We spoke with a doctor at Duke and he, um, every year he went after grants to pay for his and his team's salary. Wow. And you, I feel like you could peel off. Mm-hmm. You know, a team and, I don't know. I feel like it's, it's so many things. I'm behind you. It's so many things that I'm like. We gotta get, we gotta get this done.
There's so the needs just get greater and greater. Yeah. And people just need a break. Like they just need something to give. And it's simple as like just a month, like, can you cover one month of my rent just so I can have some breathing room? It's on the way. It's on the way. I, I don't believe that it's going to, like, I don't believe, you know, he's brought me this far to just stop so many more people to help.
Well, and even the, um, the snowstorm that mm-hmm. Right. The two, and I went to Walmart and they were already talking about his comment. It's coming. It's coming. So, I mean, the place was empty, right? Yeah. So when you got people who are living paycheck to paycheck, and I did that for most of my life, it was like.
How if you, I'm getting paid on Friday. Mm-hmm. The shelves are empty on Monday. How do you And survival storm, right? Yeah. I'm telling you crazy. It's not, anyway, I, I digress. I guess that's, I was complaining about that anyway last week. So, but it's, I mean, it's, it is real because then, I mean, you got these, you panic.
I mean, I would panic. It's scary. Yeah. It's really scary, but. You're awesome though. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate this opportunity. I was like, huh, why do they wanna talk to me? But thank you. You were perfect.
Well, welcome to our flags of Change segment, where we explore how powerful symbols are often born from the bold vision of just one individual. So today we're looking at the 36 star US flag. And um, Kristen, thank you for joining us on this special segment. Yeah, thank you for having me. I think, you know, at first glance it seems like just one of the other flags where we kept adding, you know, states more stars.
But how does this flag, you know, stand out from other historic US flags? Yes. Um, it's special for, um, two reasons really. Um, it's the flag most commonly associated with the end of the Civil War. And, um, also the flag that, um, I think is really symbolic of Lincoln's presidency. It includes, uh, the state of Nevada, which was, um, kind of rushed into statehood for political reasons.
Um, LA Abraham Lincoln wanted to make sure that, um, ensure that he was gonna get reelected and he also wanted to, um, pass the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery. And so Nevada was an, um, key to kind of accomplishing both of those goals. And then the second reason why it's so, um, it has so much historical significance is because it was actually the flag hanging, um, on the wall, um, the night that Lincoln got assassinated.
So they had basically the venue had, um, displayed, even though it wasn't the official flag yet, they had displayed it, um, just kind of as a sign of respect. And then when he ended up, um. Getting assassinated. They took down the flag and they actually used it to cradle his head. Um, so it's both, like, it both has, um, historical, um, significance, but it's also like was kind of a witness to, um, something that really changed everything in this country.
Wow. I didn't know that about the, when he was. Um, shot. Mm-hmm. Did they also lay the same flag over his casket? Um, well that's actually very interesting. They didn't, um, lay that particular flag. Um, I mean, but they had kind of, they were going to do lay a 36 star flag on his casket, but there was a kind of a te there was a rust telegram to Indian flag makers.
It wasn't very clear. And so, um, the telegram ordered. Uh, 37 Flags with 36 stars, and, um, Annon ended up making, uh, 36 flags with 37 stars. So that's, even though that the flag wouldn't have 37 stars for another like two, three years, um, that became the flag on his casket. Oh, telegrams are a little sketchy.
Yeah. I always thought, and it is of course you get a new state, you had a star. But some of the historical significance, uh, of these flags are really, really pretty amazing. I mean, it's sort of like a following of people that collect flags and have this, uh, uh, as kind of a, uh, I wanna say collection, but it, they, they each mean something much more than just simply out state, I guess is what I'm saying.
I dunno if I even asked you a question. That may have been more of a statement. Some of them, you know, there are many of them that have really interesting stories around them. Um, and then there's others. I think that was just like. Yeah, yeah, just put a flag. But the Civil War, that is a very, um, especially where we're located, I mean, it's, it is a very big, uh, historical event.
So, uh, the, I can see where this would be a, a highly sought after kind of, or at least a, a flag that people would go hold. Did you know the backstory on this? Because now I do, and I'm gonna be very, very popular at parties because most people probably don't know this. Well, you know, is there anything else, you know, any other lesser known details, uh, around this flag or, um, anything else you wanna share on it, Kristen?
Yeah, so there's actually two in, um, it was so, um, during the assassination, it actually wasn't the official flag yet. It was, um, 'cause the way, even though Nevada had been a state, um, I think, um, several months prior to that event, it. Um, it wasn't added to the flag until July 4th of, um, 1865. Um, so it's, it's like every, every year they, if there's a new, if they have a new state, they'll add it to the flag.
Um, we've just happened to have 50 stars because we haven't added any states in a long time. Um, and then. I guess the other really interesting fact is that you have so many variation of these really old historical flags. There was no standardization, like you could, um, all it, it had to be like X number of stars and 13 stripes and that was it.
So you could have all kinds of like different arrangements and patterns. Like that's what you see, some really cool circle designs. You see all kinds of things with them. These like really old historic flags. Wow. Yeah. That's awesome. I wish we had a few different alternatives. Mm-hmm. From the 50. Business would've been great back in the early days for Flag Makers, because they were out states like it seems like every day, so Well, that is awesome.
Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing, Kristen. Thanks for joining us again. Thank you, Kristen. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for listening to Freedom and Glory, tales of American Spirit. If today's story moved, you share it with someone who'd appreciate it. Subscribe and leave a review. It helps others find us. And when you're.
Eddie for American made flags and Products Built to Last Visit, freedom and glory.com. One flag, a million stories. Yours included.