ONCE UPON A
CHOCOUTE
Chocolate shop in Gibsonville
»PAGE 10
SPRIN ROCKED ELON
X Wale, Super Mash Bros, and Neon
^ Trees performed at Elon »PAGE 7
THE PENDULUM
ELON, NORTH CAROLINA | WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2011 | VOLUME 37, EDITION 15
www.elon.edu/pendulum
HEATHFR CASSANO : Photo Fditor
Artie Smith arrived at Allied Churches In March when he realized he needed to make changes to his life. Smith now spends his time volunteering in the
Good Shepherd Kitchen, which is located on the same premises. The Kitchen serves lunch every day to the homeless community in Alamance County.
Finding home, hope
during a time of crisis
Caitlin O’Donnell
News Editor
It is a period of transition for
Allied Churches of Alamance
County, a shelter located in
downtown Burlington that
provides lodging, meals and
resources for the homeless in
the community. As the shelter
attempts to expand both its
facilities and resources to meet
increasing need, it is also facing
serious cuts to staff and funding.
Allied Churches was recently
informed it will lose $25,000 in
federal funding, despite a drastic
increase in the number of shelter
guests from last year to now. With
a daily operating cost of about
$1,500, this equates to just around
16 days of services. Couple that
with the recent layoffs of four
staff members, one-fourth of
the previous staff, and it is clear
that the need runs deep, both for
those living in the shelter and
those running it. As a result, a
restructuring of the center, as well
as the community’s perception
of the issues of homelessness, is
currently under way.
The face of need
For Artie Smith, desperation
was the driving force. He had
passed the shelter numerous
times and was always aware of its
presence.
But it was not until he reached
one of the lowest points of his life
that Smith entered the doors of
Allied Churches.
“I lived in a dope house and I
woke up one morning and realized
that was not how I wanted to live
my life,” he said. “God saw fit for
me to be here.”
A former regional trainer
for Ruby Tuesday, Smith stayed
clean for five years before falling
back into a lifestyle of drugs and
alcohol in October of last year. It
would be six months, March 6 to
be exact, before he would realize
the path of his life needed to
change.
For the first week of his stay,
he kept to himself, passing his
time at the library or the shelter’s
nearby Resource Center when
meals weren’t being served.
During his second week, he made
the decision to start volunteering
in the Good Shepherd Kitchen,
located on the campus of Allied
Churches, serving lunch every day
of the week to the local homeless
community.
Smith hasn’t spoken to his
three children, aged 24, 21 and
14, since before Christmas. He
doesn’t know where he’s going to
go once his allotted 90-day stay at
the shelter has expired.
But what he is certain of is
the fact that Allied Churches has
changed his life.
“I’m ‘doing me’ until I see fit
and I’m mentally and physically
able to handle life outside of the
shelter,” he said. “If you could see
where I came from, you would
wonder how I got here."
Each person who enters the
shelter, whether coming for
lunch on a Monday afternoon or
planning a stay for a few months,
has a need that must be met. And
as these needs increase, leaders of
Allied Churches have been forced
to make serious reconsiderations
and adjustments.
An expanding need
Hunter Thompson, the current
executive director of Allied
Churches, first joined the staff in
Sept. 2010. Almost immediately,
major changes in the shelter
began.
The second week of December,
the shelter moved to remain open
24 hours and seven days a week
to accommodate more guests,
subsequently increasing the need
for space.
“The most difficult thing
is having so many people in
such a small space and helping
them live in community with
one another,” Thompson said.
“During the winter, when the
number staying with us grows,
there are people sleeping in the
kitchen or the chapel because
we won’t turn anyone away. But
we’re overextended, we don’t have
enough resources to go around or
enough room.”
From 2010 to 2011, the
average number of guests staying
overnight in the emergency shelter
has risen from 58 to 63. The total
number of guests for 2010 was
612. In the first three months of
2011, the total number was 238.
If the trend continues, this year
could see as many as 900 total
guests, an increase of just under
50 percent.
In the winter, these numbers
jump even further, practically
doubling as the temperature dips
closer to freezing, Welsh said.
“One of the realities of being
a homeless shelter is that the
See HOMELESSNESS |
PAGE 2
Students
challenge
Elon’s sexual
assault response
Kellye Coleman
Reporter
She woke up early on a February morning to find
herself in bed with a male student whose name she
didn’t know, the sheets stained a deep red from the
events of the night before and her memory of them
foggy and distant.
it was the morning before her 19th birthday.
“I was panicking, and 1 just wanted to leave
without saying anything, but I had no idea where
I was,” said Penelope Newbridge, an Elon freshman
whose name has been changed.
She searched the room for her cell phone, lost
after a night of heavy drinking with girls she didn’t
know well. Newbridge quickly realized she wouldn’t
be able to find
her way home
and would have
to accept the ride
offered by the
student who had
been lying next
to her.
She attempted
to forget, but
instead spent
the days that
followed feeling
embarrassed and
overwhelmed.
“I don’t want to
stay here. 1 don’t
feel comfortable
or safe at all,” she
thought, pieces
of her memory
from that night
returning and
revealing the
tragedy of what
had happened
- the pain, the
requests to stop,
the moments
before blacking
out.
Just a year
BY THE
NUMBERS:
1 in 5 women will
experience sexual
harassment during
college
95 percent
of women who are
sexually assaulted
do not call campus
police or officials
16 percent of
students reporting
sexual assault
pursue judicial
action
earlier, Elon sophomore Carla
Blankson, whose name has also been changed, was
asked by a male student to dance at a fraternity party.
He was drunk. She was sober. After accepting a ride
from the student’s friend, she found herself being
physically removed from the car at his apartment.
“It’s his initiation night. You’re the girl he wanted
to bring home,” she remembered the driver saying.
For the next two hours, Blankson fought with the
male student as he clumsily took off her dress and
his clothes, his roommates sitting in front of his
bedroom door to ensure she wouldn’t be able to
leave.
“They were laughing outside, and I don’t know if
they were drunk or being jerks,” she said.
He finally passed out after several failed attempts
to have sex with her. She jumped out of his two-
story window.
Blankson decided not to tell Elon administrators
about the incident.
“I more or less wanted to get over it and forget
about it,” she said.
Newbridge did decide to pursue a university
Judicial Affairs case once she found out the name
of the person she said attacked her.
“I need to go through this process, because I
See ASSAULT I PAGE 2