Ultra run, art show, film to support Congo charity

OnTheGroundGlobal.org

SEACREST — Morning coffee was a special Congo blend as a crowd gathered in the offices of Amavida Coffee & Tea in Seacrest to hear about the company’s plans to aid destitute women in the region where the coffee originated.

“We’re hosting a 40-mile ultra run with On TheGround Global to raise funds for Project Congo, a gender equality and women’s empowerment initiative,” explained Casey Tindell-Trejo, Amavida’s marketing coordinator, in the lead-up to the meeting.

Amavida has long been associated with programs to educate and improve the quality of life of the coffee farmers with whom the company deals directly. Most of these have been in concert with On the Ground, a global charity founded by Chris Treter of Higher Grounds Trading Co.

Amavida has participated in On The Ground projects in Chiapas, Mexico, and Ethiopia, helping to provide potable water, financial training, and micro loans to those living in desperate conditions.

“We have the ability to take a very little amount of capital and do incredible stuff, see real impacts,” Treter said during a conference call. “We put in water projects (at Chiapas) at one-fifth the cost of what the Mexican government could do. This is real stuff. It works. It’s effective.”

The next projects on the agenda involve helping farmers and families in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a constant state of war has lingered for decades, and where women — mostly widows — suffer the hardships. Several public events will take place locally to raise awareness and funds.

“The goal is to educate our community about what is going on abroad, and how we’re doing that through coffee — helping to create sustainable communities,” said Dan Bailey, founder and owner of Amavida.

The events planned through the fall and into the new year will include:

l Solstice Run: From sunrise to sunset Dec. 21, run 40 miles along Scenic 30A and nature trails around the towns to support Project Congo initiatives. No registration fees will be charged; instead, runners are asked to solicit pledges. Details: WinterSolsticeRun.org

Running a 5K for charity is laudable, Treter said, but “when you run 40 miles, you’re really bringing attention to something else.” In this case, he said, “Running is a bridge that provides an opportunity for people to pay attention to something that’s extremely important.”

l Paddle Run: Tentatively scheduled for Spring 2015, this will be a paddleboard event set on the coastal dune lakes of 30A.

l Project Congo Coffee: Amavida is bagging and selling a special blend of coffee grown in Congo; $5 per bag sold goes to Project Congo; each bag has photos from the region shot by Treter. Details: Amavida.com

l Art Show: Musician Cody Copeland is organizing an exhibit that will feature art created by locals on the theme of gender equality. (Date and location to be determined.)

l Screening “Virunga”: Amavida will host screenings of a documentary film about the Virunga National Park, one of the most bio-diverse locations on the planet, and home to the last of the mountain gorillas. (Dates and locations to be announced.) Park rangers protect this UNESCO world heritage site from armed militia, poachers and the dark corporate forces struggling to control Congo’s rich natural resources.

Treter, who has run ultra marathons for charity across Ethiopia, organized a Summer Solstice run in Travers City, Mich., that raised $30,000 for Project Congo. The money is being used at the coffee cooperative to boost education in gender equality and teach native women business skills. 

The money will also allow for micro-loans so the women can fund a business, raising their profile in their community.

The goal for Amavida’s Project Congo events is to raise $100,000.

On the Ground points to Zawadi Kaleura as an example of a real person the project will aid. Her husband drowned trying to cross a lake to Rwanda so he could buy sheet metal for the roof of their hut. Now she’s raising four boys in a region where constant conflict has destroyed the economy and killed nearly 6 million people.

Zawadi is a first year member of the Muungano coffee cooperative, but has only 700 trees from which she can harvest beans — not nearly enough to provide enough income to support her family.

Project Congo will provide a Gender Action Learning system and series of workshops for the area’s women to learn leadership, business and accounting skills, as well as micro-loans to help generate their own businesses and begin lifting themselves out of poverty. She said a micro-loan would allow her to buy and sell palm oil and soft drinks, making enough profit to maintain her home and send her children to school.

“If we could see the reality of our neighbors’ lives, we would take care of them — because we are a caring people,” Treter said.

Peace. 

---

(This is my Undercurrents column for PanamaCity.com and The News Herald this week.)

Feeding hungry children at Christmastime

Moving pallet of food into pantry.

PANAMA CITY BEACH — I was touring The Ark recently, talking to director Bobbie Brigman and her husband Ric about activities and programs for seniors and winter visitors, when I met a young man named Jason.

He was volunteering in a food bank housed beside the worship sanctuary on the Ark’s campus; Jason’s family was staying in emergency housing on the campus until they could get back on their feet, and he was stocking the Food4Kidz pantry with items delivered that morning.

At another point during our interview, Ric’s phone rang and a hesitant female voice on the line asked if this was the place where she could get food for her family. His answer was, “Yes.”

“People are treated with respect and dignity here,” said Ric, a member of the Ark’s board, worship leader at the on-site church, and director of Food4Kidz, the pantry program housed at the Ark. “They call, make appointments to pick up food. There’s never a line here. Some of them I’ll see once, some I see every couple of months.”

The general policy is to feed a family once a month, but exceptions have been made in extreme circumstances, he said. For more information, call 249-KIDZ (5439), or visit Food4Kidz.org or Facebook.com/Food4Kidz online.

Food4Kidz is a local non-profit associated with the Feeding America program, receives supplies from the Bay Area Food Bank, and has been supported in its efforts by a grant from the St. Joe Community Foundation that purchased a van for the organization via Bill Cramer Chevrolet. Each month, Food4Kidz moves four or five tons of food — frozen, dry goods, canned items, pastries and more — and they feed hundreds of families.

“Some families are still trying to get on their feet after being decimated by the BP oil spill,” Ric said. “The family business is gone, their life savings is gone.”

The demand for help has doubled since last year, Bobbie said, and Ric added that the causes for that are difficult to pin down: Unemployment because of the end of tourist season jobs, general longterm under-employment, grandparents raising grandkids, or just because awareness of the program has grown.

On the two days prior to my visit, the pantry had served 11 families per day. In the worship center, I read notes left by parents and children who had picked up food there.

“Yesterday I had to decide between antibiotics that cost $80 or groceries,” wrote Paula, the mother of a 10-year-old son with health problems. “Of course I chose my son’s antibiotics. I wasn’t sure what I would do for food. I guess the lesson is to have faith.”

Ric stood at my shoulder, reading the note as I did. “That’s when we feel like we’re doing what we’re called to do,” he said.

Peace.
---
(This is my Undercurrents column for PanamaCity.com and The News Herald for Dec. 6.)

Speaking to strangers...

River Jordan speaks at Palms Conference Center

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Laughter initially filled the Palms Conference Center on Wednesday afternoon as author River Jordan took the stage to tell her stories. Soon enough, however, the deeper truth of those stories began to sink in as River led the luncheon audience to understand how the lives of strangers are intertwined.

“Sometimes the life chooses you,” she said. “You don’t choose the life.”

River, the author of “Praying for Strangers,” is a Panama City native now based in Nashville. She spoke at the fundraiser to benefit the Panama City Rescue Mission’s Bethel Village program for women and children, which is working to purchase new mattresses for the shelter, with the help of The Sleep Center in Panama City.

“So many of us think of prayer as a bedtime activity, as we prepare for sleep,” said Cathy Byrd, director of the Women and Family Ministries for the Mission. “So this is a nice tie-in with our campaign. River shows us we can pray anywhere, anytime, for anyone.”

(For more details on the fundraising effort, visit PCRMission.org.)

Fran, River and Leah (mom)

River, who wore a necklace marked “Dream” on Wednesday, is a natural storyteller. She says she was “discovered” as a writer by a sixth grade teacher. She considers herself a novelist — she’s currently working on a new novel about “bourbon, bullets and broads” — and never intended to write a nonfiction book.

Clearly, as she says, she also never wants to be “trapped in the box” that people might want to imagine for her.

I first met River when she was executive director of the Gulf Coast Children’s Advocacy Center in Panama City. In her spare time, she was working on a novel that became her debut, “The Gin Girl.” Since then, she has published another three novels and two non-fiction books, including “Praying for Strangers.”

River started praying for strangers in 2009, as her sons were deployed to the Middle East and she realized she was selfishly praying for their safety. Instead, she vowed to pray for the strangers she met each day. She never meant to tell any of them that she prayed for them, and she never expected to know how her prayers might be received.

“It was never about anything except God’s love and blessings and perfect peace,” she said. “That they be loved, they be warm, that they be fed, or whatever (their need) may be.”

Me and River

But then she felt led to tell a woman in a bus stop that she had prayed for her, and the story that poured out of the woman inspired River to begin writing down what she learned through the year. Others shared stories with her, and she discovered that praying for people she didn’t even know was blessing her own life in unexpected ways.

“I don’t ‘look’ at the people in that moment,” she said. “I ‘behold’ them. I don’t judge them. I see them.”

And isn’t that, essentially, the prayer of everyone?

Peace.
---
This is my Undercurrents column for PanamaCity.com and The News Herald this week.

Southern author Cassandra King discusses life, books, literacy

(As originally published at PanamaCity.com earlier today; in print by The News Herald on Friday.)

Cassandra King

PANAMA CITY — Author Cassandra King loves “summer places” and admires efforts to advance literacy and literature, so it’s little wonder why she’s in town this week.

King and her author husband, Pat Conroy, are visiting Panama City to promote her new novel, “Moonrise,” at a pair of events in support of the Bay County Public Library. Thursday, the Bay County Library Foundation will host the couple for a ticketed reception to raise money for the annual Books Alive festival.

Today, King and Conroy will be at the library’s 11th Street HQ for a presentation and book signing from 10 a.m. to noon. The event is free to the public. Conroy, the author of modern classics including “The Great Santini,” “The Lords of Discipline” and “The Prince of Tides,” will introduce King at the event.

Conroy isn’t traveling with King for the whole “Moonrise” book tour, she said. The Panama City stops are the only ones in which he’s directly participating, and King said that’s a testament to the Clemons family of Panama City.

“We’re very fond of Kathie and her parents,” King said, referring to her publicist, Kathie Clemons Bennett, and her parents, Gerry and Barbara Clemons. “Her mother, Barbara, is now gone, but they were so gracious to me when I first met them.”

Gerry, the former Panama City mayor, and Barbara, who died in 2010, were advocates for Books Alive since its inception in 1999. The festival of reading brings dozens of national and regional authors to town for a weekend celebration of literacy and creativity each year. Conroy and King both wanted to lend it their support.

“We very strongly support any town that wants to have a book fair,” King said in a telephone interview. “It’s quite an undertaking, and I think it’s wonderful — especially for a tourist-oriented town — to emphasize and celebrate the arts in some way.”

In addition, King said, Panama City and the beaches hold special places in her childhood memories. She grew up on a peanut farm in Dale County, Ala., only a couple of hours by car due north of Panama City. Her parents often took the family on summer vacations to the Florida seashore.

“We went mostly to Panama City or Pensacola, when I was growing up,” she said.

'Moonrise'

‘Moonrise’

At least in part inspired by “Rebecca,” Daphne DuMaurier’s classic Gothic romance, King’s new novel, “Moonrise,” is the story of a woman living in the shadow of her predecessor, a beautiful and much-beloved woman whose tragic death shattered the lives of her loved ones.

King is careful to say that “Moonrise” is not a modern retelling of “Rebecca.” She has read and enjoyed some of the novels that consciously set out to retell classic stories in updated dress, but that was not her intent.

“The only time I thought about that, I had already gotten into working on (‘Moonrise’),” she said. “With that in mind, I had talked with my agent, but I didn’t set out to do that. Who knows, maybe I’ll go back to it sometime and actually try to (write a modern ‘Rebecca’).”

However, King also doesn’t downplay the important influence “Rebecca” had on her as a lover of books.

“It’s one of those that really caught my attention as a young teenager when I first read it, about 14 years old,” she said. “It was probably responsible for me becoming such an Anglophile. I’ve read almost anything by Daphne DuMaurier I could get my hands on. I know she’s not considered a great literary writer, but she’s excellent at what she does.”

King has read “Rebecca” at least three times, in different stages of her life.

“I read it first just for pleasure,” she said. “Then I became aware of how she created these wonderful, memorable characters, and I looked at how is she able to build the suspense like she does after I became interested in writing myself. I became a great admirer of how her books (were structured).”

“Moonrise” is King’s fifth novel, following “Making Waves in Zion” (1995), “The Sunday Wife” (2002), “The Same Sweet Girls” (2005), and “Queen of Broken Hearts” (2007). Her bestselling books have been recognized as Book-of-the-Month selections, Reader’s Choice award winners, and more. The paperback of “The Sunday Wife” was chosen by the Nestle Corp. in its campaign to promote reading groups.

In addition, King’s short fiction and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including “Callaloo,” “Alabama Bound: The Stories of a State,” “Belles’ Letters: Contemporary Fiction by Alabama Women,”  “Stories from Where We Live” and “Stories from The Blue Moon Café.” She has taught writing on the college level, conducted corporate seminars, worked as a reporter for a weekly newspaper, and published an article on her second-favorite pastime, cooking, in “Cooking Light” magazine.

Her earlier novels were set in Florida and Alabama, but when it came to the setting of “Moonrise,” King had a specific place in mind: the so-called “Highlands” of North Carolina.

“We have started spending a good bit of time there,” she said. “I thought it lent itself to a story because … it’s so much of a summer place, so places like Panama City can identify, where folks have had homes maybe for generations, and they have their own little group of friends you’ve known for years.”

She likes the “mysterious air” of the mountains and thought she could do something with setting the story there. “Moonrise” is told from three different viewpoints, which King thought was important for this story.

“I wanted to focus on the way we have to carve out an identity for ourselves,” she said. “What I was trying to do in the book, is look at a woman in a midlife marriage, kind of remaking herself, finding her place in this new phase of her life. I wanted to focus on that, but also look at (how) she’s trying to get in this group, so I have one member of the group looking at her, then a mountain woman giving us a different perspective on ‘the summer people.’ It was fun doing it that way.”

Pat Conroy

Life and Art

Conroy is known for mixing autobiographical material into his novels, so King was ready to address the concept as it pertained to whether her own experiences might have paralleled those of her heroine in “Moonrise.”

“In some ways, all our books have tie-ins to our experiences,” she said. “Not every (writer) does so to the extent Pat does. I tell him that some day he ought to write fiction.”

King and Conroy met in 1995, when he was asked to write a cover blurb for her first novel. They married in 1997, and she found herself welcomed into the extended Conroy family.

“It was a mid-life remarriage to a well known man, and we were both at the stage in our lives where we had our own circle of friends,” she said. “I was very fortunate I did not have the experience of trying to be accepted, but I’m sure that happens to people and you’re always kind of aware of it, (wondering) will these folks like me.

“Our kids were grown, but that might even be a little more difficult — adults might judge you a little harsher than a child would.”

The closest she came to writing what Truman Capote called a “non-fiction novel” might have been her third book, “The Same Sweet Girls.” King said she had to “really work” on disguising the characters so her friends wouldn’t immediately recognize themselves in the book.

The literary coupling between King and Conroy has been evolving over the years as well, she said. When they first started living and working in the same house, they shared their work as it developed. Now, not so much.

“When we first got married, it was such a novelty, so there was more of the sharing and talking about what we were working on,” King said. “The newness has worn off. He read my new book as a galley (a copy sent out for advance review before publication) for the first time. I didn’t even think to ask him.”

King tends to read more of Conroy’s work-in-progress because she helps him get it past the imaginary membrane into the cyberworld — from handwritten pages to digital document.

“The reason that I (read) Pat’s more is that he is totally inept — he hand writes everything,” she said. “I’m more likely to see his in progress, while I do all my stuff on the computer. Of course, if I have a Conroy chapter, I’m going to read it.”

MEET THE AUTHORS

Who: Cassandra King, introduced by Pat Conroy

When: 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12

Where: Harbor Village Social Room, 3001 W. 10th St., Panama City

Cost: $55 per person (includes the new novel, “Moonrise”)

RSVP: 624-4212 or mgfenimore@me.com

‘Moonrise’ Book Signing and Talk

Who: Cassandra King, introduced by Pat Conroy

When: 10 a.m. to noon, Friday, Sept. 13

Where: Bay County Public Library, 898 W. 11th St., Panama City

Cost: FREE

Details: 522-2120 or bmead@nwrls.com

More Author Events

l Writers Gallery is 7 p.m. Sept. 17 at Chez Amavida, 2997 W. 10th St. Panama City’s longest-running open mic for writers. Details: Facebook.com/WritersGallery

l 14th Annual Gulf Coast Writers Conference is 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 21, at Gulf Coast State College, 5230 W. U.S. 98, Panama City. Admission is free. Details: GulfCoastWriters.com

l Karen Spears Zacharias, author of “Mother of Rain,” will be at Sundog Books in Seaside at 5 p.m. Sept. 24 to sign copies of her new book. Details: call (850) 231-5481 or visit SundogBooks.com

l Local Books Alive will showcase area authors at the Bay County Public Library in Panama City on Oct. 12. Details: nwrls.com

Annual exhibit supports ‘Art for Change’ project

PANAMA CITY — Proceeds from the fifth annual Northstar Arts show will be used to beautify the county and provide “artistically altered” benches and trash receptacles at Bay Town Trolley stops.

The Northstar Arts show and sale will be 7-9 p.m. today (Friday, March 1) at CityArts Cooperative in downtown Panama City. The project is sponsored by Northstar Church in Panama City, which sees art as a way of having a positive effect on the community.

“The event has grown exponentially every year,” said Nick May, the church arts director, who also is a novelist and founded the monthly Writers Gallery gathering. Nick added that the venue changed from the church to the co-op this year because CityArts is pre-equipped for such events, which cuts down drastically on setup time.

“It’s also a gesture of artistic camaraderie,” Nick said. “Northstar Church — and specifically Northstar Arts — has long been a patron and supporter of the local arts community. We believe artists are important to God, so they are definitely important to us.”

Last year, 314 pieces by more than 25 artists were featured, and 47 pieces sold for a total of $2,566 in only two hours, Nick said. The 10 percent of sales kept by the church was used to support an ongoing mission to aid the people of Kiu, a village in Kenya, in a clean water project.

As before, 90 percent of each sale will go to the artist (which is unheard of for most gallery events) and 10 percent will go to a church initiative. This year, the church has decided to use its share of the proceeds to provide for this community.

“Traveling around the Bay County area, it’s not difficult to spot a trolley stop with someone standing waiting for the bus,” said Northstar communications director Sonya Henderson. “One day, a member of our arts staff spotted an elderly lady standing holding groceries without a place to sit, and it struck a chord with them. After a conversation with a couple of other staff members, we began exploring the idea of putting benches and trash cans at some trolley stops that lacked these amenities.”

The idea, she said, was to create functional art installations. They contacted the folks at Bay Town Trolley and learned that financial limitations keep the BTT from providing these amenities at every stop. Both parties became excited by the possibilities a partnership could produce.

The Trolley Stop Project will be the first part of Northstar’s “Art for Change” initiative. Online concept submissions from artists will be taken in mid-March, final designs will be presented in April, and the plan is to have three benches installed by the end of May. Northstar will provide benches, trash cans and a materials budget for each of the installations.

The project won’t end there. The goal is to provide similar installations for every stop in a “captivating way” over the next few years, Sonya said.

“We believe that art can make a difference and is vital to community development,” she said. “We want each stop to be creative, beautiful, and serve as a place of rest for every trolley patron.”

Peace. 

Northstar Arts Fifth Annual Art Show

• Where: CityArts Cooperative, 318 Luverne Ave., Panama City

• When: 7-9 p.m. today

• Admission: Free, and open to the public

• Details: NorthstarArts.cc or Facebook.com/

(This is my Undercurrents column for PanamaCity.com and The News Herald for Friday, March 1.)

Catching Up Again - It Must be Autumn

No Jail Will Hold Me For Long

So I got arrested last Thursday. Sort of. Actually, I turned myself in.
For some reason, the MDA thought I could help them raise money. Boy, were they wrong! If I'd had to stay put until my bail was raised, I'd still be there.

Tony and Simona

One cool thing, though, was running into a former student intern of mine, Simona Ondrejkova, a Mosley grad in 2009 who originally came here from the Czech Republic. She's now a financial advisor with Merrill Lynch, so I think I did a good job of pointing her AWAY from a career in journalism. She didn't take the "intake" photo above, but when I was being processed out, she was taking intake photos for the newly-arrested.

Nick Signing Books

Friday, I took the day off from my job to spend with my lovely wife as we celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary. Early in the day, however, I went to Gulf Coast State College for the second session of my 6-week Education Encore course on Creative Writing Techniques (which was supposed to be titled "Writing Short Fiction" but whatever). Nick May came along for a visit, talked about his process and sold a few books.

Working on a Writing Prompt

I've been pretty pleased so far this semester, as the class is filled with hard-working writers who are willing to share their work. My friend Mark Boss will visit the class this week.

Meanwhile, I continue to struggle with my zombie novel that I began last November as part of NANOWRIMO. And when the struggle gets to be too much, I dive back into my dystopian detective tale set in the Year of the Comet. And waste far too much time on tumblr. And watch far too much TV. (Have you been following Fringe? or Doctor Who? or Revolution? or ... well, I have.)

Peace.

Going to MDA Jail — Post my bail!

I'm going to be "arrested" on Thursday, Sept. 27, and carted off to "jail" at the Outback Steakhouse in PC.

While it's not a real jail, it's even more important, as I'm raising bail to help children and adults with muscle disease in my community who are supported by the vital work of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA).

I might not be able to rely on good behavior to get out, so that's why I need your help: I need you to donate to my bail! Just CLICK HERE to make a secure donation, or you can visit the site MDA set up for me and click on the DONATE TO ME button.

Thanks!