Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Well, good morning, and welcome back to another edition of just say something's weekly podcast.
Just say something is here to help families have some of those difficult conversations with their or together parents and child that some topics that they may not feel comfortable talking about, especially as it relates to kids and everything that's going on these days with kids now, you know, tobacco, alcohol, vaping, opioids, there's just so much more that kids have to deal with, their families have to deal with these days. So just know we are here as a resource and you can find us at just say somethingsc.org dot. And so I know every week when we have a guest, I always say this is a very, very special guest. But today it's a very, very, very special guest. And if you're looking at us on the web or if you're just listening to us, you're not going to want to miss this because Carol Reeves, they're one of the founding board members and long serving CEO, executive director, is with us today. So, Carol, welcome.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Seems like good old times. So those of you that don't know, Carol retired at the end of 2022. And so she and Dave are living that retired life, helping each other, take care of each other. And so as we get into this, Carol, there's so many questions, so many things I could ask you, but for those listening to us. So how did you and Dave go from Belleville, St. Louis, to Greenville, South Carolina?
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Oh, my, that's a long time ago.
Well, Dave was the director of real estate for Ralston Purina, who had a headquarters in St. Louis. And they were going through a lot of changes. This was back in 1980, late 1981, and where he was going to have to go was end up living in. They were going to transfer him to San Francisco. That's where that division was going at the time. They were looking at getting into, really the business of Jack in the box.
And he had been citing locations and stuff, and he started talking about the fact that, well, what do you think about San Francisco? And I said, not, not a whole lot.
I could not imagine moving. I had born and raised in southern Illinois, Belleville, Illinois, and my whole family was there. There wasn't a soul in our extended family that lived far away.
And I was president of PTA, and I was then I was on, I had been on the school board. I was chair of most of the fundraising things at the school.
And my life was very settled and very active. And I really was involved in something that was relatively new at the time, as, again, this was in the very early eighties. And it was that the parents needed more information about their kids as far as how to really be a successful parent. I thought I was a successful parent until I started getting involved. They had notified. They had sent me a bunch of stuff from the state to say, look this over, because we'd like to see if it can be implemented in some schools. And that was about really three years before we moved.
I did everything they asked me to do. And there was this course called parent effectiveness training, and there was a course called systematic training for effective parenting. And so it was step and pet, and I took both the courses, learned how to be a facilitator. And one night, I went home and told Dave, I said, we are terrible parents.
We have just not got this right at all. And of course, he said, what are you talking about? And so I made him take one of the courses. And I encouraged a group from our school, a group of women to moms, to take it during the day. But then I also wanted some of the fathers to be involved. And so we did that. And it was amazing. It was amazing how these people came to the realization that, oh, my heavens, we don't know any of this, about, really, about systematically raising a child.
And this was really a time when we were just hearing a little bit about, I think the first drug that came across my desk in school, in PTA, was really heroin.
And it was a horrible video about heroin, a girl that became hooked on heroin. And, of course, our school board was like, we're not showing this to parents. And I said, no, I think they need to see this.
Parents need to know more. They need to know this is out there. They need to know what's going on in their neighborhood. They need to know about their kids friends. And they. I really got to look like, yeah, right. We're doing just fine. And that's the same look you used.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: To get here in Greenville.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: I still get it.
But they were really.
It was so foreign, really. And. But I became very, very determined and very, just engaged with this about how. And I started applying some of the little things that. And I really thought, this is right. This is the right. I really. It became a calling to me over those three years. It became a calling to know more about parenting, to know more about these drugs that are coming, and to be very much more aware of what was around me going on, because I had small children and I didn't want to. I didn't think about them using anything, but I thought, that's out there. They could hurt somebody. It's so much crime in it, etcetera. So I was really getting that established.
And my husband says, we're going to have to go. We're going to have to move, Carol. We're going to have to make a decision. And I really. He went out to San Francisco, and he came back and said, I don't know. And then I went with him to San Francisco, and we came back and I said, no, no.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: You knew that. No.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Yes. It was very different. It was a different culture for me. For one thing, I didn't want to start my kids over. I just. It was just terrible. I said, if we got to go, we're going to go someplace else, not San Francisco. I said, quit, of course. He said, yeah, and you're going to pay the bills. And. But he went to a lot of conferences, being director of real estate, went to a lot of real estate stuff. And at one of those conferences, he met a gentleman from South Carolina, and they hit it off. And that gentleman was head of real estate at JP Stevens in South Carolina.
It's just funny because I won't go into it, but I thought we were moving to a place like Hilton head.
That's the only thing I knew about South Carolina, was Hilton head. And I thought, well, that can't be bad, you know, I mean, pretty good. And I said, and they're really, if our house doesn't sell, they're going to buy our house, and we're going to live in.
It's beautiful down there. Why would I say no? The ocean's right there. Well, it took me a while to realize it wasn't Hilton head, but it was.
Then Dave said, well, I think we're going to probably headquarter in Charlotte, because at the times, JP Stevens was thinking of transferring their headquarters to Charlotte. And I said, okay, I've never heard of Charlotte, but I had two trips down to South Carolina.
One they just showed me. Oh, do I have funny stories about that. But they showed me all what Greenville had to offer. And when I saw downtown Greenville at that particular time.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that wasn't our best foot forward.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: No. I thought it was a real step backwards for us. But I thought, you know, all right, I don't need the downtown. I'm going to live in the suburbs. And the second time I came by plane, it I had to pick out the house.
And so we were built. We finished building one, so I had to pick out wallpaper all in one day. But I did, and it was exciting, and we moved, and I cried. Dave said, I cried until we got past somewhere in Kentucky when we were driving down here. And it was a culture shock and all so new to me. And I was truly an outsider for the kind of things that I like to do.
It was really, really hard for me to leave. My dad was elderly, and my mom was, too. My mom had Alzheimer's even then, and my whole family felt like I was deserting them. Dave was the bad guy.
My sisters both said, how can you do this at a time when we're really kind of taking care of mom and dad? I said, what am I supposed to do? You know? It was really hard. It was very tumultuous and very.
Turned my life on an end. And I thought, I'm starting over. And, oh, boy, I didn't know how much I was starting over. But I did make a vow coming down when we were driving and talking, I said, I'm not going to volunteer no more.
Because I had been a volunteer very, very deep in my school and even in the state school board. And I stayed home, I don't know, maybe a month.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: I was going to say, that didn't last long, did it?
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah, because it was. It was 1992, and by 1984, I decided, we're not doing this right, because we were struggling with what we were doing. But I do admit that it was what started me or turned me that way was someone talking to me and saying, you know, you really should go to some of these meetings we're trying to have. And it was Wade Hampton High School, parents mostly. And I did, and I listened. And to myself, I kept thinking, oh, my God, this is worse than I thought.
They really wanted the school to fix everything. They wanted to start the organization that would help the school and maybe raise money. Sounded like a PTA.
But they wanted the school to start teaching kids that they couldn't drink and drive. Now, they didn't say much about the drinking, but they couldn't drink and drive. There had been a horrible summer accident that had killed, I think, two kids. It's really hard to remember 40 some years ago, but we talked about that a lot. And they said, well, Carol, what was it like where you were?
I'm sorry.
And I said, well, it was the same in a lot of ways. And in a lot of ways, I don't know if there was as much drinking. It was the first time I came to Greenville. Just one trip ahead of buying the house.
Someone very important at Stevens picked us up, and they showed us around and gave us a backstory, which was very interesting. And then they said, we're going to go to a brunch out of the Greenville country Club. I said, that'll be nice.
They all had a cocktail in their hand, the driver, passengers, and they drank every time we stopped, every time, anything, we had more alcohol. And they looked at me kind of funny when I said, no, thank you.
And we got out to the club, and it was just natural. Everybody was walking around with drinks, and some just had wine. And when I got away, going back just a day, they said, oh, my God, I can't live here.
They're all drinking and driving.
I said, there was kids walking around that country club. There was kids picking up drinks. Injury. And Dave said, well, you got a lot of work to do.
And he said, please don't alienate anybody. Please don't lecture anybody. We just got here, and I don't want to be run out of town.
So I got involved, and I started answering the way I thought I should answer, to be accepted. And then I realized, that's not going to change a thing. And I said, you're going about this all wrong. The schools can't solve your problem. This is all about the parents.
Well, I got looked like, who the heck are you?
But I talked about it every time, and it stayed very steadfast.
Slowly, they would turn to me for answers, certain questions and stuff. And we finally merged into a board, decided we'd raise money. And I thought, well, this is good, and it's a start. And we started in a closet in somebody's office here in Greenville, and it was their storage closet and supply closet, and that's where we had a card, not a card table, but a table about the length of a regular lunch table or something, and some chairs.
And that was about it. And we started getting resources in. And there was one girl, Karen Abrams, and another one, I can't remember her name, but they were really good at locating free stuff that would be sent to us. And that's how we started.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: That's important.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: And then we.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Free stuff.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: We wrote a, we wrote a grant for the community foundation, and something started with Piedmont Health, maybe Piedmont Healthcare foundation or something like that. And we got two small grants, and we were ecstatic. I mean, we thought, we are there.
And that's how it started. Very small, very small talk. Had a good relationship with the schools. At that time. The district was split up up into southeast, northeast, southwest, northwest. And there was a PTA person with each district, with each section. And we got to know them very well, and they helped us, and they taught us a lot about schools. We learned real fast about what the schools weren't going to do. And so we. Back to the drawing board. I said, you know, this is all about parents. We've got to get more parents involved. They've got to be. They don't know. They have to be educated. So we're just going to have to promote ourselves. They were here and find it really good. And I. I talked a lot about step and pet, and, of course, I don't know why, but they all felt, well, there's. There's got to be one better by now. I said, okay. And one of the girls on the board found Stephen. I can't remember Stephen's last name, but Stephen wrote the developing capable people.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Is that Hawkins?
[00:16:46] Speaker B: No, that was David Hawkins was later. But anyway, this. This Stephen. And there was a nurse, and we brought. We brought them in. We contacted them, brought them in, and had a big meeting. And I think we had that at Buncombe street, one of their meeting rooms. And many parents came. It was because it was well advertised. This was something new.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: And before social media, oh, my gosh.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: I mean, I really started back in the day, before fax machines, okay, the old mimeograph that ran. And we had long phone conversations, because I worked with people across the state of Illinois.
So, anyway, we started that way, and we got Steven, whatever his last name was. I'm so sorry, Stephen.
And so we started saying, we'll do developing, capable people. So we had him come and do a training of some trainers. And most, I think the one that was the most dedicated to that, or became our lead in that. Her name was Doris. Is it not Ballard? Maybe it was Bramblet. No, that was.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: How's it.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Doris was from Furman University, and she really liked it. She really thought this was a good idea. And so slowly, we started talking about, parents need education, and parents don't think they need education. They think they know how to raise their children. And I agree with them. They know what.
How they were raised.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: They know what they know, but they don't know what they don't know.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: They don't know what they don't know. And that became a. We had t shirts with that.
You don't know what you don't know.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: So that was the birth of Greenville families in action. And so you're going to have to tune in to next week's episode to hear more about the transition from Greenville family partnership to Greenville. Oh, I'm sorry. See, I got it mixed up. Greenville family partnership. Nope. We were families in action. To Greenville family partnership to just say something. So hold on. We will be back next week for more conversation with our previous director, Carol Reeves, who has laid the foundation for who and what we are today. So be sure to join in next week, and I'll see you soon. Thanks.
