Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Well, good morning.
We are back again with another episode of just say somethings Weekly podcast. My name is Phil Clark, and I am the CEO director here at just say something. And we're going to continue with our guest from last week, Carol Reeves. Because the organization that is in front of you today, she built the foundation for us to be where we are today. So if it had not been for Carol, for all her. Her time, her sweat, her tears, her money, we wouldn't be where we are today. And so I'm forever grateful that she was the pioneer that had the vision to make us who we are. And so, Carol, welcome back.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Thank you. It's good to be here. It's just when I look around at this office today and what's going on and all the strategies that are happening and the good programs, it's amazing, gratifying.
But it brings back also, like, oh, I want to get in and tell him this. I want to get in and tell him that it was really very, very difficult to leave.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. And honestly, had your health been better or would be better, you would still be coming in every day.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Yes, I would. I would.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: I know that about you.
So the last week when we were talking, we were at. When Greenville families in action was formed.
And so that was in the. That's. We actually received our 501 C three in 80.
No, in 84.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: In 84, right.
Things started happening, really in 83, real heavy, late 82. And by 1984, when we received our 501, we were ready to roll and we were doing everything we could to write grants. Now, let me tell you, 40 years ago was a lot different landscape to write grants. And it was a lot.
There was many. It was mostly all foundation. The government was not in it then. And so we wrote every kind of grant we could, a 10,000, a 5000, a 25,000 telling our story. And we were kind of unique because we were a group of parents, all volunteers. And we did say that the organization started, I still would say that, by parents sitting around the kitchen table and then in someone's living room.
That's the way it went.
We were. I think one of our big success stories that we went public with was that we got a grant from the Paul Newman foundation back in the day.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Oh, I remember those.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yes. And so that really helped us get established more. We finally got to the point where we needed a bigger space, and we ended up moving to Macbeth.
And we.
I finally learned how to pronounce it. I was saying McBee, and nobody knew what I was talking about, because you.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Aren'T from around here.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: I wasn't from around here. That's right. They had to educate me and teach me how to talk. And when we were. When we got to McBee, we. Macbee. We thought we were. Really made it. I mean, we did. We had. We set up a resource center that was a good size room with. With. By this time, we had videos, we had books, we had pamphlets, we had posters, and we had a lot of information. Not so much about parenting, but a lot to tell them about drugs and some behaviors. And we were doing parenting as regular as we could. They were very small classes, but we were doing that. We were being noticed for that. And the schools really built a good bond with us. And then there was the death of Enrique Camarina, the DEA agent who was the first DEA agent tortured, brutally murdered in Mexico by the cartel. And we had been fortunate enough to go to enough conferences and enough meetings that we knew about the DEA. We knew what they did. We had many lectures by them every time we could learn something from them. They were very gracious about letting us talk to somebody or sit in. And so we did know about Enrique because he was very personable and he would be friendly to us. And not too many of them were friendly to us in DC. We were kind of all those little ladies over there, you mean. We were always sitting on the side of the room type thing.
Then Enrique made it a point to say to us, to several of us, that, you guys keep going. You're the only ones that are going to make a difference. Well, with someone who is already bought in, as heavy as I was passionate about it, that stuck with me, still does to this day. And I believe that, and I believe it still, that we are the only ones that will make a difference. And.
But when Enrique was killed, we were just shocked and mad, angry.
This couldn't happen in the United States, and we had to do something and find out who killed him.
We became a force, and we did that when accidentally. We talked about it a lot, and it was an accident that we really.
It was about three weeks before his body was found.
In truth, there's a lot of movies you can watch about that, and they will talk about the national movement. And I was enthralled with the DEA possibly going into some kind of prevention, and that they were beginning to realize that parents needed information, not just a video about heroin.
And I really took that, I think, to my. To my very heart and soul. And so it empowered me to really fight for people knowing what happened. And as, without going into a lot of detail, that would take years.
We started the red ribbon campaign, and we just. We were still working as states. You know, Illinois was doing certain things, and South Carolina was just getting on its feet, but we took the lead on getting on our feet, and I learned as much as I could. We wanted everybody to wear red ribbons until his. His case was solved. We wanted everybody to wear red ribbons to know who Enrique Camarino was. And he gave his life for this cause and that he was a person. He was different than anybody I had met in government, in law enforcement, in DEA, in the FBI, and any of that.
He knew it got down to the parents and how kids are raised.
And his story is remarkable unto itself. And we probably could do a separate podcast just on him, but they're still very close to his wife. We still communicate. His widow, she never remarried, and his son, who is a district attorney in one of the counties in California, in LA.
And when we started wearing these ribbons, we thought, well, this is great. It was really something different. We got the schools involved. We had mothers cutting ribbon. We were buying ribbon everywhere. We had to go to Georgia. We ran out of all the red ribbon in South Carolina.
That's how much it spread at that time. And we thought, you know, this is really cool. And we were. It was expensive to buy these ribbons, so we were taking donations to buy the ribbons. And South Carolina and Florida and a little bit in California and a little bit in Illinois, we really grabbed onto this. And it became the red ribbon campaign and in his memory, in his honor. And we picked a week eventually, that we would celebrate his life, and that became red Ribbon week. Activities became awareness and information about parents talking to their kids about drugs. We didn't do a lot or tried not to do a lot about just getting on the. It wasn't. We didn't want it to be negative. We wanted to be positive. We wanted every office to just take five minutes, pin on a ribbon, and maybe during lunch hour or at the water cooler, have a conversation about how we want our kids to grow up. What do we want them to think about? Drugs? Would they ever take drugs? Just have a conversation. And we knew communication was the key. It took me a few years to get to there, but the communication really had to be the key and that it had to be basic. I knew a lot, and I still know a lot, and I still stay tuned every third day at home, catching up on where we are, on statistics and what's going on and the new drugs coming through.
But it, I became the national chair of the red ribbon campaign, and we began connecting all the states that wanted to do red ribbon. Unbeknownst to us at the time, it became our biggest fundraising tool. There was somebody finally said, you know, we should sell these ribbons and schools don't have any money. They can't buy ribbon. We can't hardly buy it. Well, we finally, you know, got smart, thought, well, we got to get a wholesaler. We got to do this as a business. Well, I came out of the business world when I decided to become a volunteer. So we did. We made a business out of it on a national level.
We took it all the way to DC. We had presidents. We had tv announcements, we had tv interviews. I traveled, unfortunately, I traveled for about nine years and traveled and traveled and traveled to.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: And your wardrobe was red.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Red, right. And I was known in Washington walking the halls as a lady in red.
I became an advocate, talking to all the senators and anyone that would listen to me and talking about the need for parents to have better information and for the schools to work with parents to tune them in to getting information and allow for avenues of information and to get our teachers involved. And we had started out with just say no clubs. I was at the first, just a no walk in California with Nancy Reagan. That's how old I am. And I watched when the child said to her, and the start of the just say no clubs when she, honest to God, they gave all credit to Nancy Reagan, but it was this little girl in the second row that she was talking to. There was an audience for the tv cameras, and she said, Nancy Reagan leaned over to her and said, what would you do if someone offered you drugs? And the little girl looked at her and said, just say no.
And that was it. Nancy said, that's exactly right. We just say no. That became just say no. Nationally, there was a few of us.
The person who took off with just say no, Candy Lightner took off with mad.
A girl named Sue Rushie who worked with us from Georgia, took off with national families in action. And a girl in Florida, Peggy Sapp, she's still around. And she kind of took off with setting up red ribbon in Florida across the state. And I was determined it would be across the state. And it was, and it became a huge fundraising. I mean, we had lots of money coming in from all over. And so we thought, well, this is, this is it. You know, we got it here locally in South Carolina. At one time, we had, at Greenville led the way, and we had $600,000 in a red ribbon campaign.
And that was the era of parents making a difference. And it continued. And I can remember conferences by then that we had. And Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's, the franchises, he was our first funder for a national conference. And Nancy Reagan was there. And people like me from all over the country by then that we had contacted. And there was small organizations cropping up.
And for a lot of years, I stayed as national and became national. Well, it became NFP. The very first name was national federation of Parents for Drug Free Youth.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: That's a mouthful.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that was too much to say, and it sounded too political.
So we changed it.
Gino was. I took him with me to help, and we came up. We didn't want to lose NFP because that's what we had branded. So we became NFP, national family partnership. We wanted every state that was working real hard to become a family partnership. So Greenville had to change its name from Greenville families in action to Greenville family partnership. The one thing I haven't gone into that would be another podcast was my partner, whom I met in that closet over on, that was on Rutherford Road, channel four, right next to the original channel four site. And the me and this girl that I had never met, she came from the school district, and she was a. I think she was a coordinator for the southeastern, northeastern, east side somewhere. And she came and was helping with red ribbon, because, I mean, we had boxes of red ribbon everywhere. And her and I worked day and night in that little closet, shipping ribbons all over the country, all over the state. It was the craziest thing you really. That you've ever seen. But we were very organized, and we got it done. And we were bent over so much getting ribbons that really, we were bumping rear ends all the time. And I always say that's how. That's what met first, is they kept. And she pushed a little bit, and I pushed a little bit. Finally, we got to laughing about it, and we literally said, you know, we get, who are you? And who are you? And so I have never met anyone like her in my life.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: And never will again.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Never will again. And she was this most wonderful person. And we became joined at the hip. She was my partner, and she did everything locally. If I had to be gone, which was a lot, and she stayed with me. And we became the state red driven co chairs before I became national red Ribbon co chair. And once I became national, she took care of the state. So we had a South Carolina family partnership, and we had a Greenville family partnership, and her name was Jeanette Canada. And we even started a scholarship fund when we lost her.
She was the most remarkable person with the biggest heart and cared more about every child. And while we were building this organization, I adopted a lot of kids. I mean, I didn't legally adopt them, but along the way, if they were a great kid, and they kept asking me questions, they ended up working. And we started an intern program. And Carol Campbell was wonderful. He was very good about funding us, and he came to some of our programs in Greenville, and he was great. The highway patrol in South Carolina, state highway patrol, they literally put up with us putting great big red bows on every interstate overpass in South Carolina. The trick was they had to put up the bows. We couldn't go out there and traffic and do it. So they had to pick them up, corn them across every place in the state, the division of the highway patrol, and then load them in cars and get them distributed. And they were so kind about it, and they got to where they really loved it. And all those bows were made by Furman university kids. We'd buy the great big rolls of ribbon, and I mean great big rolls, 18 inch. And we'd take them out there and they would cut them, turn the twisties wire on it, and they would make them 1600 a night, one evening, and then we'd get them distributed by the highway patrol. There was things that we did back then with the organization having just a board of directors and about four people, five people. And I hired Phil back then. I did, somebody's gonna help. And he was the other side of me. There was Jeanette on one side, and Phil was the other. And anytime I was gone or on a trip somewhere, another state, another country, whatever, because I spent seven, well, really nine years, but seven years really, really traveling a lot. And I can remember having conferences in Atlanta where there was 10,000 kids. We could get 10,000 kids outside of the conference center and getting them shouting, just say no. Stop marijuana, just say no.
They were very motivated. They were little clubs. They were.
You couldn't do that today. I wish we could. I would give anything to be able to capture that again, because it is nationally known and recorded in Congress as the parent movement, because parents were moving, they volunteered, they took their time. They took off work. They took five or six kids from the school. The school let them off, gave them credit, time, name change. Well, at that time, we were called.
We had changed. A national Greenville family partnership. We stayed Greenville family partnership and kept building departments and programs. And strategies and kept educating ourselves.
Anybody that worked here was immersed in learning about why people turn to drugs, why kids.
It's such a dangerous world. It was then. Now it's unbelievably dangerous for our children. We owe it to them to take the time, but we don't take the time anymore. The parent movement passed, but everything was built at Greenville family partnership with either drug prevention, how to prevent, how to prevent, how to talk about it, how to explain it, how to get attention, how to get messages out.
We ran an intern program.
We ran programs in schools.
We had a newsletter.
We were very much part of the chamber of commerce at that time. We were very entrenched. Slowly, the tide turned.
It became 2010 about. We really started losing that whole concept quickly because it was very logical. All the money that the feds put in, it changed and went to preventing gangs and went to safe safety, keep kids safe, keep kids safe, and they won't use drugs. It was completely a wrong strategy. But drug free schools became safe in drug free schools, and then became safe schools. So the money and the grants and everything dried up. So did the parents. I guess they just went away.
It was very difficult. And so we decided that we had worn out the word drug prevention and drug free, and we got a group together, and we wrote a grant to get an ad firm in Columbia. And they still do it, where they'll work 24 hours, they'll pick a group and work 24 hours.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: The rigs group.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: The rigs, yes, that's right. And they were wonderful. They were really. They really got into it.
And after coming to a decision, we finally decided it had to be.
What they kept saying to us is, you just want them to have a conversation. Because one thing I always said was, I don't just get them to call or get them to come in or get them to start something. I don't care what they say. They can say anything, because anything can lead to a prevention strategy. Anything can lead to a prevention conversation. It doesn't have to be about drugs. It has to be about conversation and relationship between child and parent, between families, and then from families, between churches, churches, between communities and coalitions, and coalition became the way to do it. And so they looked at us and said, okay, you just say something. Just say something.
And it stuck. And so it is about the conversations you can have and how to start one. I do want people to be. Have a little education and get themselves educated before they talk to their kids about some of the hard topics. But it doesn't have to start with the hard topics.
All of the parenting programs start with eating together, talking together, doing something together.
And that will lead into a trust that they can come and talk to you about the hard stuff. And you can lead the conversation just by talking to them, just by listening to them, just by listening to their songs and asking them to teach you or tell you what that means or what they like, and that will lead to a bigger conversation.
It's the simplest thing that we've made so very, very difficult for kids today.
They don't even know how to converse. They know how to text. So today, the organization being named just say something is even more important because we want people to connect by voice.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: And so as we bring this particular episode to a close to.
There are resources out there for families from us. We have a program.
Whether your child is a newborn infant, all the way up to high school and college, we have a program for you. We have an opportunity for you to learn new skills. We also have that in English and in Spanish. And so we're trying to remove barriers that keeps families from being stronger. And the way you get stronger is to have that conversation. And sometimes it's those hard conversations, but you have to have them.
Unfortunately, we have to end there. Carol, I know. I'll have you back.
There's just, we can't be who we are without having you in here at different points in times. So again, I want to thank you for everything you've done, even above and beyond what you've done for me personally, but for what you've done for the organization and what you've done for Greenville county.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Well, I want Greenville county, and you and everybody just say something to know that it was a gift to me.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Well, that gift keeps giving in both ways.
You give and we give back to you and our community.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: That sounds like a deal.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Okay. Remember our saying for Red Ribbon, neighbor by neighbor.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: We used to say, ribbon by ribbon, neighbor by neighbor.
We are united for a drug free youth.
And people really grabbed onto that. I don't know if we can do, I can't tell you how many times we've been contacted, sue and myself, about, can't we repeat it? Can we make a parent movement 0.24, right?
I wish.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Well, worse, we still have strategies to introduce to our community. So as we continue to grow and thrive within the community, there's going to be a lot more and we're going to really focus on getting more kids involved. And so that'll be another podcast. So, absolutely.
Thank you again for listening again, Carol. It was a pleasure and honor to have you with us. And you'll be back soon. Remember, you can find us on the website, on our website at. Just say something sc.org. Or check out our social media on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and all those other ones that Wendy, who helps us maintain. All of that keeps going for us. So again, thank you, and we will see you next week.
