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During
Friday’s town board retreat,
Commissioner Velma Boyd-Lawson said she
had arranged to meet with Lawrence
Eugene Perry, president of the National
DuBois School Alumni Association, over
the weekend on behalf of the town board
and the Koinonia Foundation, where she
is a board member.
It never happened, she
reported in an e-mail to board members
and reporters Tuesday. Perry, who lives
in Baltimore but visits here often, did
not return her phone calls until late
Saturday when he suggested meeting after
church Sunday. She called him after
church, and he did not return that phone
call.
“So ends my attempts to
initiate any dialogue with him. Any
other attempts will be made on his
part,” Boyd-Lawson concluded.
The town has contributed to
the renovation of buildings on the
DuBois campus and pays for the water,
sewer and electricity. Koinonia is
helping one program and has provided
other grants in the past.
Perry’s refusal to meet with
Boyd-Lawson echoes his refusal to speak
with the editor of this newspaper or
keep all alumni members informed. The
interim director for the DuBois Center
that Perry hired, George Jones, said
recently he was “not permitted” to speak
with the editor.
There are a number of rumors
about the center in town but none of
them could be confirmed or disproved
because of the policy of no information.
The center does have a
revitalized food bank, thanks to
Glendine King-Jeffreys and other
volunteers. It is open two Thursday
mornings a month in the renovated gym on
North Franklin Street. Senior citizens
are served on the second Thursday and
all other needy people on the fourth
Thursday.
The food bank is receiving a
total of $3,000 from the Koinonia
Foundation in monthly installments, and
King-Jeffreys said they use that to
purchase food from the N.C. Food Bank.
More food comes from donations and the
Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, but King-Jeffreys
says they could use more donations.
The gym is also the home to
two programs operated by the Banks Kerr
Family YMCA in Wakefield. The summer
program, Camp High Hopes, is winding up
this week. The Y plans to continue its
after-school tutoring program that also
uses community volunteers.
Another program remained
when Bettie Murchison resigned as
executive director at the end of
February, the contracted alternative
school for youngsters who had been
suspended from Wake County schools. The
school needed to remain at the center
because the instruction is based on a
computer program, Novanet, which is
overseen by experienced teachers. The
computer lab is in a wing of the
renovated shop/ag building. The contract
ended at the close of school this
spring.
Bill Poston with the Wake
County Public School System said they
want to continue to offer the
alternative program in Wake Forest. The
school system will soon begin accepting
proposals from interested organizations. |
