Enlarge Donovan Dicks wins the Pride Global Youth Award. Photo: Charlotte Observer.

Posted: January 18th, 2012 Lee Howard

West Meck Senior Donavon Dicks won this year’s Pride Global Youth Award, which honors an outstanding Mecklenburg County high school student who has demonstrated global volunteerism, fundraising for worthy causes or mission work. The Pride Awards recognize outstanding accomplishments in the African-American community.

Members of the Occupy Charlotte movement asked the Charlotte City Council last week not to prohibit camping on city property, which would force the protesters to remove their tents and belongings from old City Hall. Council members are considering crowd-control ordinances to prepare for September’s Democratic National Convention, which will likely draw hundreds or thousands of protestors.

A significant cluster of Chinese scientists and their families has migrated to Cabarrus County in the last few years. They've come to work at Dole’s NC Research Campus. They have found their growing numbers helpful in adapting to the area.

Time Out Youth (TOY) has hired a new executive director,Rodney Tucker. Long known for his involvement with the LBGT community, Tucker says he’s optimistic about TOY’s future. Tucker is a native of nearby Oakboro, N.C., and a former employee of the Regional HIV/AIDS Consortium.

The ostensibly non-partisan Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board, now nonetheless in the hands a Democratic majority, is in the throes of selecting a new CMS superintendent. How will the selection play out? For the last two years, no party has held five votes on the nine-member board.

Posted: January 17th, 2012 Tonya Jameson

Artist Edwin Gil is at it again – uniting cultures through art. This time he using the tradition of quilting along with social media and good ol’ fashioned paint to create “Quilting Differences.”

The A.C.T. (Achieving Community Today)-funded project features 18 people, nine from the U.S. and nine from abroad. The participants’ childhood stories and favorite colors will create a multimedia quilt. On Saturday, local participants stopped by Gil Gallery to record their stories and paint their swatches.

Gil said he was particularly excited about using social media as a part of this project because it will help show people the range of uses for social media. For example, he’s using Skype to create works for “Quilting Differences.” In this project, people from throughout the world share stories from their past.

Marina Berdan participated in Saturday’s workshop because she wanted to share a story from her childhood in Russia. Berdan embodies the project’s soul. She is a Russian native who grew up in Charlotte and is marrying a Colombian-native who lives here as well.

“It brings the whole world together,” Berdan said. “The project, it pretty much shows that no matter where you’re from, no matter what you do you’re the same. “

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Posted: January 16th, 2012 Lee Howard

It’s admittedly a rough and disparate part of town. But residents of Eagle Woods Apartments off Farm Pond Lane in East Charlotte strove to bring people together on Saturday, Jan. 14. Old and young, white, black, Hispanic, Russian and Burmese. 

The tie that binds? "Thank You" cards to the inspirational people in their lives.

“We’re here to help strengthen the community overall,” said Sheree Harper, a UNC-Charlotte grad student majoring in school counseling.

Harper was one of the coordinators of the event, held at the Eagle Woods Apartments clubhouse. She’s also a member of CHARP, the Charlotte Action Research Project, a recent recipient of a Crossroads CharlotteAchieving Community Today Projects grant. A.C.T. Projects grants were designed to fund small initiatives that connect people across lines of difference. Members of the community submitted ideas, and the public decided which groups received funding by voting on Facebook. The winners received up to $500 to implement their projects. Other recipients have included the Enderly Park Neighborhood Association and the Love Project, whose members are survivors of domestic violence.

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Posted: January 15th, 2012 Ken Garfield

Xchange Sermons began Friday night (Jan. 13) as it should: Christians and Jews, blacks and whites, side by side at Temple Beth El, sharing prayers of brotherhood and songs of peace. Sharing, as Rev. Dennis Hall said to several hundred worshipers, a yearning for Shalom.

Peace.

A partnership of Crossroad Charlotte, Mecklenburg Ministries and Temple Beth El, Xchange Sermons offers clergy of all kinds the chance to preach to a congregation of a different faith, color, class or culture. Nearly 60 pastors, rabbis and imams seized the moment last year. This year, the program’s third, the hope is that many more of the region’s 700 houses of worship will participate. Visit Crossroadscharlotte.Org to get involved, and to read accounts of previous pulpit swaps.  The program runs from January to May – appropriately, given the hope that drives it, from winter to spring.

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