Photos By Eve Greene
Carrboro Commons Photo Editor
Story By Morgan Siem
Carrboro Commons Writer

Scroll down for a slideshow of the photos.

About 550 walkers came with their dogs, friends and families to the Carrboro Town Commons, the start and finish line of the 22nd annual Chapel Hill-Carrboro CROP Hunger Walk on Sunday, April 13. “CROP” stands for Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty. The CROP Walk supports the Church World Service, which works in about 80 countries to feed the hungry. The Church World Service receives 75 percent of the money raised, while the community keeps 25 percent to help with local efforts to fight hunger. This year, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro CROP Walk’s goal is to raise $53,000, which will mean that the walk will have raised a total of $1 million over the course of 22 years. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro CROP Walk is organized by and supports the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service (IFC) on 110 W. Main St., Chapel Hill. Charles Williams, the administrative assistant at the IFC, took on the role of 2008 CROP Hunger Walk coordinator. So far the IFC has received $35,000 this year and expects more, since it takes about a month for the money to come in, he said. “We are on track, so we’re really excited about it.”
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By Alexandra Mansbach
Carrboro Commons Writer

Mookho Paw, Mark Perry, Varqa Kalantar, Omid Akhavan, Azadeh Perry, Elizabeth Tun, and Alejandro Sanchez sit down to dinner on Saturday. Each week, the group does an activity based on the theme of the day. Saturday’s story was about a family sitting down to dinner together, so the group planned and cooked a meal to enjoy together.
Staff photo by Alexandra Mansbach

The Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program aims to create “champions of justice and builders of unity.”

In Carrboro, they are doing just that.

“One of the main goals is to help [youths] understand that their community extends past their ethnicity,” said Mark Perry, a drama professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and founder of The Drama Circle, a Bahai-inspired theater group. “Another main goal is to enable the children with a sense of their own spiritual potential.”

Perry is also a group leader, or “animator,” of a Junior Youth group in Carrboro. He and his wife, Azadeh, work with neighborhood kids on personal growth and empowerment.

The group meets regularly to promote spiritual development and self-expression.

“That really needs to be encouraged because the forces of materialism are so strong,” Perry said. “And by materialism I mean anything that dampens the light of the human spirit.”

During weekly gatherings, the group participates in games, sports, reading, prayer, and artistic activities such as singing and playing instruments.
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By Kate Searcy
Carrboro Commons Writer

Move over, Jonas Brothers. There’s a new boy band in town – literally.

Lord Destiny, far left, dances as members of Miah and the Girl Toyz treat the crowd to their vocal and guitar-playing talents. The group of brothers, including Christopher and Jeremiah, far right, hopes to make their band a household name in the music world with continued daily practice..
Staff photo by Kate Searcy

Miah and the Girl Toyz, a high-energy quartet of young musicians from Carrboro, put on a lively show at McDougle Elementary School on April 20.

The group consists of Christopher, 15, who plays bass guitar; Jeremiah, 14, who sings lead vocals and plays lead guitar; Stori, 11, who plays the keyboards and sings backup vocals; and Vincent James, 10, the drummer.

The “Miah” in the band’s name is a shortened form of “Jeremiah,” according to Jacob Jacobs, the group’s manager and adopted father of the boys.

The performance was part of an entertainment series called Entertainment Adventures that is sponsored and coordinated by the town of Carrboro and the Carrboro Recreation and Parks Department. There is a different performance on the third Sunday of each month, said Robin Jones, the coordinator of the event. Jones is also a recreation specialist for the town of Carrboro.

Jones saw the group perform at the Carrboro Music Festival and asked them to join the series.

“We don’t usually have musical acts,” Jones said. “But I heard a few of their songs, and we decided they would be good for our program.”
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By Shera Everette
Carrboro Commons Writer

The Carrboro Citizen’s publisher, Robert “Bubba” Dickson (left), and editor, Kirk Ross, say the paper follows a community-centered approach to writing.
File photo by Justin Smith

Readers who picked up the March 27 edition of The Carrboro Citizen got a real surprise: a story about an aerial gondola coming to Carrboro.

Whether readers believed it or not, they saw what community journalism is about.

Especially the April Fools’ edition.

“I like humor,” said Kirk Ross, editor of The Carrboro Citizen. “I think newspapers ought to have a sense of humor. It was a good exercise in learning how different people read the newspaper.”

Catering to the community

Only a community newspaper could report a fictitious town development plan and avoid severe backlash from its readers. Ross said the relationship that The Citizen has built with its readers is the reason why the newspaper is still around after a year of publication.

“I think it’s really connected with a lot of people,” Ross said. “The great thing is that people are taking ownership of this paper. We tell our readers, ‘We’re a couple of folks who know how to make a newspaper, but we’re making it for you. Tell us what you want.’”
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By Evelyn Greene
Carrboro Commons Writer

One chilly April morning, a man walked into the sunny front room of Padgett Station carrying his planner, a coffee cup and a bucket full of branches.

Any confusion was soon cleared up as the man filled a few small, red glasses with water and placed the budding branches on tables throughout the small shop. Bringing plant life to people unfamiliar with the outdoors is what Ken Moore has spent his entire life doing.

Ken Moore, author of the weekly nature column “Flora” in the Carrboro Citizen, has written more than 50 pieces for the paper. He wants to get more people outdoors.
Staff photo by Evelyn Greene

“By the time they leave high school, I think everyone should have a basic experience in horticulture and botany,” Moore said.
After earning a degree in English from Davidson College, Moore went back to school to study plants.

In 1971, he became the first employee of the N.C. Botanical Garden. It was there that Moore discovered his passion for sharing the beauty and excitement of nature with others.

As soon as the trails opened, Moore was bombarded with calls from school groups hoping to schedule a visit. Before he knew what he was doing, Moore offered himself to the groups as a tour guide. But he fell easily into the role, crawling through bushes and rolling over logs with children as young as 4 years old.

It was also during his first few weeks at the garden that Moore realized how important it is for children to be exposed to nature.
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By Morgan Siem
Carrboro Commons Writer

The stillness that characterizes most elementary schools on Saturday mornings is missing at Frank Porter Graham Elementary. Julie Spomer makes sure of that.

The Karen refugees from Burma show off the friendships they’ve made in the gardening club at Frank Porter Graham Elementary, where many of the children are students. From left to right: Hsar Ree Ree Wei, 9; Iza Garayua-Tudryn, 7; Hla Win Tway, 10; Hsar Paw Paw Wei, 12; Mueh Pay, 10; and Kyew Shar Aye, 9.
Staff photo by Morgan Siem

Saturday has become her favorite day of the week since the inception of the gardening club with the Karen refugees, she said.

After being granted political asylum by the State Department through the efforts of Condoleezza Rice in the summer of 2007, a group of Karen refugee families now lives in Carrboro with help from Lutheran Refugee Services. They had been living in Mae La refugee camp in Northern Thailand after fleeing the militaristic government of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

“When we lived in Mae La, the Burmese hated us and would bomb our camps,” said MiH Too, who immigrated in September 2007 with her five children. Her 11-year-old daughter is a student at Frank Porter Graham and a member of the gardening club there.

On Saturdays, her daughter and the other Karen students come together, along with some of their parents, for gardening club meetings at the school.

The idea for the gardening club arose during a meeting in which community members discussed ways to help the Karen refugees feel more connected to the community.

“They wanted to give back to the school in a way that builds community and school pride, but they can’t financially,” said Spomer, who teaches English as a second language at Frank Porter Graham.

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By Evelyn Greene
Carrboro Commons Photo Editor

From comic books to chamber pots, Carrboro’s Collector’s Fair offered a variety of wares to be bought and sold. For many of the vendors at the fair, collecting has transformed from a hobby into a full time profession. The fair provided a venue for the citizens of Carrboro to share their prized possesions with fellow collectors.

See below for an audio slideshow of the event.
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By Colin Campbell
Carrboro Commons Co-Editor

Failed inventions, Victorian dress, literature and a variety of music have become common features on Carrboro radio station WCOM-FM 103.5 in recent months.

Emma Cabrera, left, and Kara O’Dor, known to listeners as Emmett and Klaude Davenport, host “The Clockwork Cabaret” Tuesday nights on radio station WCOM-FM 103.5 in Carrboro.
Staff photo by Colin Campbell

The eclectic mix is a part of “The Clockwork Cabaret,” a new radio show that represents the many facets of a new subculture called “steampunk.” The program airs on Tuesdays at midnight.

Hosts Kara O’Dor and Emma Cabrera, known to listeners as sisters Klaude and Emmett, said they hope the show helps the expansion of the steampunk movement’s local following.

“Carrboro is totally steampunk and it doesn’t realize it,” O’Dor said. “This is a great, artsy town, and a lot of people would jump on it.”

The steampunk subculture is characterized by an affinity for the fashion and literature of the Victorian era as well as modern and futuristic technologies, leading some to describe it as “neo-Victorianism.”

“The Clockwork Cabaret” features readings and book reviews of literature, as well as music from a mixture of styles and periods that evoke an “old-time” aesthetic.

“It’s easy to find songs that fit the genre really well,” O’Dor said. Recent programs have included music from Irish rock band Flogging Molly, Goth musicians In Tenebris and 1950s pianist Joe “Fingers” Carr. Often the music centers around a theme, such as Paris or the sea.

O’Dor and Cabrera said they each own more than 1,000 CDs, and all songs on the show come from their collections, built from years of experience as nightclub disc jockeys.“This is going to help broaden people’s musical horizons a bit,” Cabrera said.

Cabrera and O’Dor have created detailed personalities for their on-air alter-egos, the Davenport sisters.

“They’re pretty much extensions of our own personalities,” O’Dor said.

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By Allie Maupin
Carrboro Commons Writer

Randy Dodd has an idea to help soothe Carrboro citizens’ worries about increasing traffic congestion and rising gas prices: get rid of your car.

Dodd has plans to develop a community program aimed at helping the environment by reducing the need for personal vehicles. Though still in its early stages, Dodd‘s initiative, entitled Carrborrow, seeks to establish a car-sharing enterprise in Carrboro.

Carrborrow hopes to link people with forms of alternative transportation and if effective could help alleviate traffic in downtown Carrboro. .
Staff photo by Allie Maupin

“Car sharing is a very interesting trend,” Dodd said. “What I want to do is establish that here in Carrboro, but with a locally driven focus.”
Car sharing started in Europe, where a group of people would buy a car together and share its cost and usage. Unlike renting a car, sharing allows many members to use the same car by allowing them to rent a vehicle for hours, rather than days.

The idea is for people give up the use of a personal car in exchange for access to a full fleet of vehicles, parked in locations around a city. Dodd said his initiative will increase the energy efficiency of cars because one can pick the best mode of transportation for a given trip.

Dodd, originally from New England, has lived in central North Carolina for 40 years. He works as an environmental planner for the Town of Carrboro, a job that he said “constantly requires thinking of ways to make Carrboro better.” The origins of Carrborrow came from combining of Dodd’s love of cycling with his commitment to the environment.

“I was into recreational riding and bike touring, and all of that started my thinking about alternative transportation,” Dodd said.

Giles Blunden, Dodd’s neighbor, who has consulted on the project, thinks Carrboro is just the right place for a program like Carrborrow to work.

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