Enlarge Janis Caracappa and a bag of the hats and gloves that her group has collected.

Posted: February 5th, 2010 Greg Lacour

Crossroads Charlotte occasionally spotlights individuals who are improving the city’s social capital.



Janis Caracappa and her husband, Steve, began collecting clothes for the homeless in early January, after their daughter bought a cup of coffee for a homeless man in uptown Charlotte. They decided to follow up the following week by bringing coffee and sausage biscuits to the cold and hungry on the street. Then they took it further. On Jan. 5, the Caracappas named their fledgling charity Hats & Gloves, set up a Facebook page and began handing coats and blankets to the homeless wherever they found them. In less than a month, the Facebook page has collected 356 members, Janis and Steve have set up a Web site, and they’ve forged a partnership with a Methodist church in Marion whose pastor is trying to run a similar charity in the N.C. mountains. “There’s just so much need,” Janis Caracappa says. “All of our friends who’ve joined us on Facebook have said, ‘Well, we wanted to help but just didn’t know where to start.’ And neither did we, except we took that first ride and couldn’t look away.”

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Posted: February 5th, 2010 Tonya Jameson

The Civil Rights Movement has always fascinated me. I watched the documentary “Eyes on the Prize.” I read books about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., FBI surveillance of black leaders and anything related to the struggle.

As an intern at the Montgomery Advertiser, I drove down the streets where protesters marched. I peered at the church where King preached and the home where he lived. It’s the closest I’ve been to the movement as a journalist.

This week, I met a journalist who was in the thick of things. Matthew Lewis photographed the March on Washington, the Democratic National Convention in 1968 and JFK’s funeral.

On Monday, Lewis was part of the throng of people celebrating the opening of the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro.

Feb. 1 also marked the 50th anniversary of when four N.C. A&T students — Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, David Richmond and Ezell Blair Jr. — sat at the lunch counter to order food. Their sit-in ignited college students to protest throughout the South. The museum is in the old Woolworth building where the sit-in took place.

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Posted: February 3rd, 2010 Meaghan Clark

1. For two-year-old Avery Bonoffski, home no longer means a disaster-strewn street in Haiti; it’s a warm loving family in Huntersville.

2. Residents share stories of job losses. Mayor Anthony Foxx says it’s “the issue of the year”.

3. BofA found to be discriminating against African-American job seekers. The bank denies any allegations and plans to appeal decision.

4. The town of Fort Mill is back on track to take over sports and recreation from private company.

5. Get out your wallets and be prepared for Craft Attack, a marketplace for local artists and artisans.

Posted: February 3rd, 2010 Greg Lacour

Of all the combinations that the Xchange Sermons series is setting up, this may seem to some people an unlikely one: a Muslim Imam at a Baptist church.

On Feb. 2, a cold, rainy morning, Imam Khalil Akbar told Providence Baptist Church staffers that, as far as he’s concerned, they’re not terribly different.

“The Qur’an talks about one God,” said Akbar, the resident Imam, or prayer leader, at Masjid Ash-Shaheed Islamic Center in Charlotte. “Muhammad said you should want for your brother what you want for yourself. It’s the same Golden Rule.”

One of the Xchange Sermons series’ goals is to educate congregations with limited knowledge of the other's faith. Providence Baptist’s senior pastor, Dr. Al Cadenhead Jr., will speak to the faithful at Masjid Ash-Shaheed on Feb. 14.

Akbar didn’t go to Providence Baptist to deliver a sermon to the congregation; he engaged church staffers in a conversation during their monthly meeting.

But Akbar was a particularly good choice to speak to a group of Baptists. He once was one.

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