Stories of Giving

Lucille Webb: Women’s History Month Spotlight: The Mentor

Lucille Webb: Women’s History Month Spotlight: The Mentor

March is National Women's History Month! This year's theme is "Writing Women Back Into History," and throughout the month, we'll be publishing a series of stories and interviews that highlight women givers from different North Carolina communities. We invite you to join us in "writing women back into history," as we celebrate the MANY contributions of time, talent and treasure made by women in our state. ...Read More

Amber Smith: “Woman makes volunteerism life’s work”

Amber Smith: “Woman makes volunteerism life’s work”

As a teenager growing up in Raleigh, Amber Smith longed to “make a difference” in her town, but she didn’t know how. ...Read More

Maria Tucker: Women’s History Month Spotlight: The Dancer

Maria Tucker: Women’s History Month Spotlight: The Dancer

March is National Women's History Month! This year's theme is "Writing Women Back Into History," and over the next few weeks, we'll be publishing a series of stories and interviews that highlight women givers from different North Carolina communities. We invite you to join us in "writing women back into history," as we celebrate the MANY contributions of time, talent and treasure made by women in our state. ...Read More

Jocelyn Negron-Rios: “The two-way street of giving”

Jocelyn Negron-Rios: “The two-way street of giving”

Inspired by the Latina teens she is helping prepare for college, Jocelyn Negron-Rios, a wife, mother and full-time worker, has almost completed her freshman year at Strayer University. ...Read More

Students of Lucile Souders Elementary : “School kids raise dimes, awareness”

Students of Lucile Souders Elementary : “School kids raise dimes, awareness”

Every weekday morning from Nov. 3 through 13, during the daily-announcements video broadcast, Principal Tammy Holland talked about giving to the staff and 430 students at Lucile Souders Elementary School of Math and Science. Following her talk, fourth and fifth graders on the broadcast quizzed one another about the meaning of philanthropy. ...Read More

Lynn Kennelly: “Woman left life earnings to charity”

Lynn Kennelly: “Woman left life earnings to charity”

After she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, Lynn Kennelly and a group of her friends helped form a team for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure 5K event in Charlotte. An avid runner who competed in the event every year, winning her age group at least once, Kennelly took to walking in the event after the disease returned in 2006, metastasizing as bone cancer. And last summer, when the cancer ravaged most of her body, Kennelly turned to Abigail H. Kerr, a friend, fellow breast-cancer survivor and Komen teammate, to help her create an estate plan. ...Read More

Reggie McAfee: “Retired exec teaches kids to persevere”

Reggie McAfee: “Retired exec teaches kids to persevere”

The slogan "Attitude is everything" is inscribed on Reggie McAfee's business card. McAfee should know: A child of public housing in Cincinnati, he became a star runner in high school in Ohio and college in North Carolina. Now, he heads a Charlotte-based nonprofit that uses running as a tool for teaching kids to keep on keeping on. ...Read More

Vilma Jose: “Fayetteville woman bridges cultures”

Vilma Jose: “Fayetteville woman bridges cultures”

After his first day of kindergarten in Fayetteville, Ian Jose arrived home in tears, having been teased because he looked different. His classmates told him to go back to China, not understanding that he is a native North Carolinian, born to a mother from the Philippines. ...Read More

Susan Springer: “Volunteer enriched by giving”

Susan Springer: “Volunteer enriched by giving”

On Christmas Day, 350 volunteers from the Jewish community in Chapel Hill and Durham will fill in for employees at roughly two-dozen local nonprofits, letting them take the day off for the holiday. ...Read More

Nicole Cashwell: “9-year-old girl thinks of helping other kids” (from The Fayetteville Observer)

With everything else on her to-do list, Michele Ellis wasn't sure how in the world she would get 67 Christmas stockings decorated and personalized in time for the seventh annual Falcon Children's Home party she was helping to plan. Nine-year-old Nicole Cashwell came to the rescue. ...Read More

What's Your Story?

From barbershops to quilts to fondue, North Carolina is overflowing with inspiring stories of giving — stories of people who are truly making a difference in their communities.

What's your story? We'd love to hear from you.