Friday, July 15, 2011
Franklin County Family Resource Center gets a 'grand gesture'
Have you heard?
JoAnne Poindexter
'Have you heard?'
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Archive
The Franklin County Family Resource Center in Rocky Mount is the recipient of one of Grand Home Furnishings' 100 "grand gestures" on behalf of the furniture company's centennial anniversary and the Grand Happiness Foundation.
Grand donated two sofas, two chairs, two rugs, a television and TV stand, a telephone desk and chair, two glider rocking chairs, a dining room table and chairs and wall pictures.
The 24-bed resource center hosted 110 clients in 2010; 56 were victims of domestic violence and 54 were homeless.
Before the donation, the center was using an old conference table as a dining room table, with plastic, stackable chairs, according to center director Cynthia Treadway. She said the rest of the new furniture is for a living space all the families will share.
Grand Home Furnishings' Westlake employees recommended the center as a recipient of the donations.
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Rebecca Vail, who traveled to Poland as part of a presentation on the Holocaust, atrocities in Africa and the Middle East and prejudices in local schools, has earned Girl Scouting's highest achievement, the Gold Award.
Her presentation, "Chazak Ve'ematz -- Be Strong and Be Brave," incorporates human emotion with facts gained from the trip to death camps in Poland.
Vail created a PowerPoint presentation and script about the Holocaust and included photographs she took on the March of the Living in Poland. She also designed a Jeopardy-style quiz based on the information in her talk.
During the project, Vail said she learned about the prejudices of World War II, the Holocaust time period and today's society, adding that she wants to educate students "about the damage prejudice can have on an individual and society as a whole."
A member of Girl Scout Troop 827 of Trefoil service unit, Vail is the daughter of Charlene and Sydney Vail and is a rising senior at Hidden Valley High School. Her mother is her troop leader.
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Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David Ayers recently participated in Exercise African Lion in Morocco with members of his unit, B Company, 4th Combat Engineer Battalion, based out of Roanoke.
B Company engineers interacted with Moroccan engineers and explosive ordnance disposal technicians during the training.
Ayers, a 2009 graduate of William Fleming High School, is the son of Karen and Anthony Ayers of Roanoke and joined the Marine Corps Reserve in May.
