Brittany Counts on Working at Metanoia

AH: You said that you work as a counselor for eighth grade girls, what school do you work with?

BC: I work with, my program is not housed in a specific school. I have girls who attend Morningside Middle School in North Charleston; Military Magnet in North Charleston, and yeah, those are my two schools, they all stem from Chicora Elementary and our program is there because the Chicora-Cherokee area of Charleston is the poorest sector of Charleston and these kids had nowhere to go during the hours that were most dangerous for them, which would be between 2pm and 6pm, which are the functioning hours of our program. It is during these hours that kids, teenagers, seem to make the choice as to whether go home and do homework or to go stand on the walk with your friend who is selling drugs or to could be forced into robbery or things like that. And so we take them and we give them a safe haven, a lot of them do not constant people in their lives, people who they can depend on, they have people just come through and say that that they are going to be there and before they know it they are gone again. So we teach them skills that need to make it past all of the statistics that say they are going to in Chicora-Cherokee doing the same things that their parents do and that is as far as it goes. We teach them entrepreneurship, and character, we develop their character, we teach them how to deal with their emotions and our program runs from first grade through high school and I work on the high school program. And we are the only program in South Carolina, who has a program for high school students because they tend to be very different because they are growing up, they are defining themselves and that can often lead to attitudes and rebellions when you tell them to do certain things, but we work hard and we let our students know that if they need anything they can come to us.

AH: And so the funding for that program comes through the state or private funds?

BC: We are a non-profit so all of our funds are donated, we have fundraising activities, we have people who are annual donors and then we have the donors who if we need anything we can call them and it is just like they snap their fingers and it is done, but and we host, our biggest fundraising event is Jubilee, which takes place in December and its’ where we showcase what the kids have been working on and our high schoolers have two business, the boys work on the Hodari Brothers [Screen Printing Co.] screen printing and they make mugs and T-shirts for local community organizations and businesses and the girls have a business called the Isoke Sisters [Jewelry] and they make jewelry and they showed off, they showcased the jewelry, they sell the T-shirts and it just a chance for the donors to come together and they can donate money, they can meet the students, they can see what we have been working on, the progresses that we make here and where we are aiming to go in the future.

AH: That is great, how long have you been involved with that?

BC: I am a Bonner Leader and as a Bonner Leader I am committed to serving at least 300 hours of community service a year and Metanoia, which is the name of the program is my work site through my program, through Bonner. It also qualifies for my federal work-study, so I often refer to it as my job as opposed to my work site.

BC: I have been, my first year I worked with sixth grade girls and I am into my second year now, where I moved up to seventh grade and I also have eighth grade students as well.

Sara Daise on Race Relations

AH: Can you remember any other racial divisions, or conflicts that you can think of in elementary, middle, or high school?

SD: Beaufort is an island, a series of islands, St. Helena Island, Lady’s Island, and everything is connected by a bridge so there are turf wars in Beaufort. Ah, Beaufort County is one side of the bridge and Lady’s Island is on the other and they do not like each other.

AH: Oh

SD: These are Black people and of course we are all related so, so all of my cousins live on the other side of the bridge, but that was a huge division. There were several fights in high school and my daddy went to Beaufort High School as well and that stuff was going on when he was in high school, you know. You don’t like the people because they live in this side of the bridge. You have people who rep Island you have people who rep Beaufort. I remember there was a gigantic fight in the gym a huge battle with like mace and the different football games we went to the police would be on watch because people would come and fight just because of where you lived.

AH: What year is this?

SD: I graduated in 2007, but this happened throughout my four years of high school and my daddy, I cannot remember the year he graduated from high school, but it has been going on since then.

AH: Is it based on historical facts or anything?

SD: I don’t think it is, I don’t think it is. I don’t know the historical background. Beaufort High used to be in Beaufort County, but now it is just off the bridge when you get into Lady’s Island. And I think now the way they draw the lines is different for who goes to that school and who goes to our rival school, which is Battle Creek, which is on another island and over another bridge and they have their own turf wars over there too. But I am not sure of the historical background, but they take it very seriously. Like I remember going to some games and being scared because you knew that someone was going to fight not for anything reason other than maybe my sister was talking to a dude who lives in Beaufort and we don’t like them.

Education

Sara Daise on differences between Black and White Students at Beaufort High School


SD: I would never go back. I know that some people loved high school. I did learn and I did enjoy it. I did marching band I was in color guard my senior year, I was color guard captain. I enjoyed choir as well. Um, I had a few good teachers some not so great, uh freshmen year was really tough for me because I wasn’t ready for high school so for tenth grade I had to get it together, buckle down and get my work done and I excelled. I got to meet different people. I was not in the honors program, but I took some AP [Advanced Placement] classes, but I could never be in the AP program because math and science are not my thing, so that would just be horrible. So, one of the things that is interesting is that in my honors classes that I did take the Black kids that were from marching band and choir were in those classes. There would be three or four of us in those honor classes. If I wanted to get to know the rest of the Black population I would have to go my CP classes.

AH: CP classes?

SD: College Prep

AH: College Prep, okay

SD: It is interesting to see that in most of the schools, college prep, oh that good, but at Beaufort High College Prep, college prep does not prepare you for college.

AH: Laugh. Okay, okay. So in your high school, in Beaufort there was a division between Black and White kids and they were tracked differently?

SD: Definitely, like I said in the honors classes I did take, like English and History, and um government, there would be about three or four or five of us. It was always the same ones and we were also the ones who did extracurricular like marching band, or choir; athletes not so much in the honor classes. I mean there were a few who acted like they were not dumb, but not much. It was mostly those in student government