City Life Critics’ Pick Winners: Best in the Nest 2024
The best of Charlotte's city life as chosen by Nerve critics
Every day there are folks working hard to ensure a better future for our city. This is for them.
Winners: Download your award graphics here
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: J’Tanya Adams
Having grown up a sharecropper’s daughter in the Steele Creek area of southwest Charlotte, J’Tanya Adams moved to Seversville in adulthood, where she worked with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership to help educate her neighbors in the Historic West End about critical info that could keep them from falling victim to gentrification.
She went on to found the Historic West End Partners, a nonprofit organization through which she has helped revive the corridor with development projects like Mosaic Village, creation of public spaces such as Five Points Plaza, beautification projects with local artists, and projects that address food insecurity along the corridor, including the launch of Thrive Food Hub this year and the anticipated grocery co-op Adams has been working for years to make a reality.
As we’ve done reporting in the West End over the years, it has remained apparent that Adams’ presence remains even in projects she’s not directly involved with. A recent example came in July as we talked to Greg Willingham about the long-anticipated opening of Rozzelle’s Ferry Landing, a cluster of businesses anchored by a music venue that aims to serve as a community hub in the Historic West End.
As we chatted about the project, Willingham mentioned in passing that, if it weren’t for Adams, the project wouldn’t have even come to the West End. She was the one who gave Willingham and business partner Keith Anderson a history lesson about the corridor, emphasizing what the new communal space could mean for residents who have gone from disinvestment to witnessing gentrification.
“Honestly, we were looking at a completely different place, because we just knew we needed a home,” Willingham recalled. “And when [Adams] approached us on it and gave us the history of the area, what the area used to look like years ago, it just resonated with me and my partner.”
Adams remains a true community advocate who works with the best interests of her Historic West End neighbors every day.
Listen: On Call With Hannah Hasan: Episode 4 Featuring J’Tanya Adams (2020)
LOCAL HERO: Kirsten D. Sikkelee
From waiting tables at Carpe Diem after graduating from Davidson College to growing the YWCA Central Carolinas as a staff member and later CEO, Kirsten Sikkelee has lived and breathed Charlotte for decades. Though she’s stepping down as CEO at the end of this year, her legacy will continue to live on in critical facilities for women and families facing homelessness in Charlotte — and in a vocal, organization-wide commitment to antiracism. At this year’s We Believe luncheon benefiting YWCA, Sikkelee received multiple standing ovations for her three decades of service to the community, an appropriate honor for someone committing to sharing the spotlight and using her privilege to platform others.
Sikkelee has promised to stay on as the YWCA completes a major affordable housing development, partnering with DreamKey Partners to transform the front lawn of YWCA’s 10-acre property on Park Road into more than affordable housing units that will be reserved for households earning 30%-60% area median income.
“In recent years, it’s become more and more challenging for individuals to find affordable housing. People are moving outside of the city, and they are commuting from far away. They should be able to live in Charlotte if they work in Charlotte,” Sikkelee said of the project.
BEST TWITTER ACCOUNT: @Tyre_94
This will likely be the last time we include the Best Twitter Account category in our Best in the Nest, as Elon Musk has turned the site into a cesspool of misinformation, right-wing hate and weird content-farmer accounts.
Yet there are still those carrying on the good fight, like @Tyre_94, aka W.E.B. DaBoi, who bills himself as “a hater first and anti-imperialist second.” Replace the band on the deck of the Titanic with a comedian and you have Tyre, whose hilarious tweets are a mix of hopeless romanticism, anti-fascism, booze and cocaine. It’s just the right level of debauchery to take us on our last lap around the sun — on Twitter, we mean, not this planet. This ol’ rock still has a half-decade left.
BEST INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT: @_charlotteeast
Operated by the nonprofit CharlotteEAST, an organization with a mission to “develop and strengthen social and economic capital in East Charlotte by elevating the collective voice of its people…” the @_charlotteeast Instagram page isn’t just shouting out local businesses and passing along old news from other outlets. Instead, they focus on bringing timely, thoughtful and well-explained information to a nuanced and rapidly changing area with arguably the city’s most diverse community makeup.
The page is education-focused, blending history lessons with civics and a clear goal of uplifting and supporting the businesses and people it serves. Whether you’re an East Charlotte local or not, the @_charlotteeast page is worth a follow for quality CLT content.
BEST TIKTOK ACCOUNT: @madihendrix
Charlotte-based barista Madi Hendrix posts creative coffee concoctions to her TikTok account, gaining her 80,000 followers who tune in to see what she’s going to blend up next from the tiny space behind the counter at Burr & Berry Coffee in lower South End. Her most popular video featuring the recipe behind an iced cheesecake latte with cherry cold foam gathered more than three million likes.
BEST PODCAST: ‘Bad Attitudes: An Uninspiring Podcast About Disability’ by Laura Stinson
“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” Laura Stinson calls bullshit. The artist and host of Bad Attitudes: An Uninspiring Podcast About Disability, isn’t having any of that faux inspirational crap. Stinson was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease, a genetic disease that has required the use of a wheelchair since she was 4 years old.
The Bad Attitudes podcast combines Stinson’s gallows sense of humor and strong language to discuss contentious topics like ableism, what constitutes a disability and the history of disability in America and elsewhere. Stinson points out that she could have such a good attitude that she “sprouts a unicorn horn” from her forehead, but it’s still not going to get her up a flight of stairs.
“I don’t want to inspire people because I’m disabled,” Stinson said. “If you want to be inspired by something I actually do and accomplish, great, but don’t associate it with my disability.”
BEST REPORTER: Ann Doss Helms
For 32 years with the Charlotte Observer and the past five with WFAE, Ann Doss Helms covered Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and other local education topics inside and out. Since following many of her former colleagues to Charlotte’s NPR station, she also demonstrated why she’s one of the best investigative journalists in Charlotte.
This year she tracked down private “schools” that were taking state voucher money even though there was no evidence their Potemkin Pupils ever attended class and investigated the school system’s cover-up of public documents related to student sexual assault cases. With her retirement earlier this year, the Charlotte media market lost an irreplaceable amount of institutional memory and expertise on the schools beat, and given the state of local media, it’s unlikely we’ll ever have a local education expert like Helms ever again.
BEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Laura Stroud
If you’ve been to a sporting event in Charlotte, odds are Laura Stroud was nearby taking pictures. Stroud is the creative content producer for the Carolina Ascent, Charlotte Independence and Anthem Rugby Carolina as well as a freelancer who has shot everything from Division I college athletics at Campbell University, to NWSL and MLS.
When she’s not shooting sports, Laura does everything from graduation photos to portraits to events. Though we couldn’t confirm before this issue went to press, we assume she sleeps every now and then as well.
BEST BOOK (NONFICTION): ‘Our Trespasses’ by Greg Jarrell
Many Charlotte natives know the Second Ward of Charlotte, but too few of them know its history. In the 1960s, the neighborhood of Brooklyn, known as “a city within a city,” was a hub for Black businesses and neighborhoods. In the name of so-called urban renewal, the neighborhood was razed to the ground.
Greg Jarrell explores this history in his book, Our Trespasses: White Churches and the Taking of American Neighborhoods, released in February. The Black residents who were displaced still suffer the repercussions of these events.
“Half a century later, on any given night there are now more Black people interned in the Mecklenburg County Detention Center, built on ‘renewed’ Brooklyn land, than there are Black residents living in what was once one of the preeminent Black enclaves of the Southeast,” Bo McMillan wrote in his Queen City Nerve review.
Jarrell’s book not only documents the demolition of Brooklyn, but the role that white churches played in its demise. And because this story is not unique, the book also addresses other Black neighborhoods that met identical fates across the United States.
“‘To redeem is to buy back, to release from a debt, to dissolve a lien, to clear from distress, to end a captivity,’ Jarrell writes. This holds true not just for the community of Brooklyn, but for all the city of Charlotte haunted by Brooklyn’s renewal through its form as a city still cloven apart — haves and have-nots, Ballantyne and Beatties Ford, homeowners and the housing unstable.”
BEST RADIO HOSTS: Mac & Bone
Having worked together for nearly two decades and co-hosted mornings on WFNZ together since 2009, Chris McClain and Travis “T-Bone” Hancock have built a certain rapport that has helped countless Charlotte-area sports fans cope with all the struggles of rooting for cellar-dwelling teams. How else could you explain the fact that the duo stays atop the Nielsen ratings books despite talking sports in a market that is home to the Charlotte Hornets and Carolina Panthers? What product has either team put on the field or court in recent years that justifies such support?
These two bright-spirited co-hosts who have served as grief counselors to so many suffering sports fans over the years suffered their own devastating loss that goes deeper than sports this year when longtime caller and friend Mark Baker, aka Mark from Gastonia, succumbed to cancer. During that hard-fought battle, however, Mac & Bone did everything they could to drum up support for Mark from around the Carolinas, letting him know in his last months that he was loved by sports fans everywhere.
Also, if you follow the show, you know that the real beauty comes off the mic, as Mac’s post-Panthers-win dances are so indescribably off beat that you’re just going to have to seek them out yourself for a good laugh.
BEST COMMUNITY ORGANIZING: People’s Budget Coalition
A wide-ranging coalition of 16 community organizations came together to detail their proposal for the Fiscal Year 2025 City of Charlotte budget this year, calling for criminal justice reform, better pay for city workers and a $100-million investment in housing.
Comprising local advocacy groups, faith leaders, service providers, community organizations and concerned citizens working toward “a people-first vision” for Charlotte, the People’s Budget Coalition (PBC) released a list of core demands for the city to consider in putting together the FY2025 budget. The demands were rooted in three principles: (1) Great neighborhoods (2) Safe communities and (3) Well-managed government.
“We believe in care, dignity, and justice, and seek a budget that provides for everyone while centering those too often left behind or out,” read a statement from the coalition upon its formation in April. “We believe that advocating as a collective voice will help set the agenda for local government to better meet the needs of the community and deliver better outcomes for everyone.”
Come June, when the budget was approved, Charlotte City Council didn’t meet all of the PBC’s demands, but some, like the increase in funding for affordable housing and a promise that 25% of that will go to affordable homeownership programs, did make it in.
BEST COMMUNITY ORGANIZER: Joi Mayo, Transforming Nations Ford
Joi Mayo, president of the Kings Creek Association, joined with area organizers such as Virginia Keogh of the Southwest Area Neighborhood Coalition this year to launch Transforming Nations Ford, a coalition of community members advocating for southwest Charlotte’s 28273, 28277, 28217, and 28210 zip codes along the Nations Ford and Arrowood Road corridors.
“The vision of Transforming Nations Ford is to create environments that empower individuals to reach their full potential while fostering a deep sense of belonging and interconnectedness,” Mayo says. “Our ultimate goal is to inspire lasting positive change, ensuring that every member of the Nations Ford/Arrowood corridor can thrive and contribute meaningfully to the collective well-being of our community.”
Transforming Nations Ford is currently lobbying Charlotte City Council and other local officials to to help turn a piece of city-owned land into a park and incubator space for local nonprofits. The parcel, located at 7600 England Street off East Arrowood Road, was donated to the city in 2020, and for years neighbors have been asking that the city do something useful with the property.
Listen: Nooze Hounds: Joi Mayo Is Transforming Nations Ford
More recently, the group has advocated for the development of a regional recreation center at Ramblewood Park to help address the community needs at the center of Transforming Nations Ford: economic challenges, linguistic isolation, community violence, educational gaps, health and safety.
BEST COLLABORATIVE EFFORT: Charlotte Is Home Center
Community leaders with ourBRIDGE for KIDS, Charlotte Community Health Clinic, and Carolina Migrant Network came together on April 12 to kick off construction at what is now the site of the Charlotte is Home Center, an umbrella facility that will host services from all three organizations. The center opened its doors in August with a soft launch on Oct. 1.
The first-of-its-kind facility in the region offers low-cost health services, pro-bono immigration legal services, civic engagement programming, educational resources and other wraparound services to the local refugee and immigrant communities in east Charlotte.
“I really see this moment as historical for not only Charlotte but really on a national level,” Carolina Migrant Network co-founder Becca O’Neill said when construction kicked off in April. “We have excellent community-based health care services, childcare and after-school services, and immigration legal services all combined, coming together in the same space, which is something we’re told over and over again by communities is something they need.”
Listen: Nooze Hounds: Sil Ganzo of ourBRIDGE for KIDS
BEST ENTREPRENEUR: Sonja Nichols
Entrepreneurs often know their endgame when they set out to accomplish a task, but that wasn’t the case for Sonja Nichols, owner of Southern Lion. When she visited the Charlotte staple Blacklion after hearing that it was for sale, she only then discovered her purpose.
“I’m like, ‘Okay, I don’t know why God sent me down here, but I think I’m supposed to help you all find a home,’” Nichols told Queen City Nerve.
Nichols opened Southern Lion, a portmanteau of the business’s two inspirations, Southern Christmas Show and Blacklion, in 2023 as a pop-up vendor market in the former Sears space in Pineville’s Carolina Place Mall, just a mile away from the original Blacklion location on Park Road.
Since then, she has turned the pop-up into a permanent marketplace, hosting more than 150 vendors in the 82,500-square-foot space. In describing the store, Nichols proudly described how Southern Lion has become a one-stop shop for folks interested in browsing and patronizing local merchants.
“This is a shopaholic’s happy space because all they have to do is just walk around, and then all these merchants are bringing stuff from all over the world. They can go look at it in one location,” said Nichols. “Then they got the nerve to change the merchandise every other day, or at least once a week.” So now you’ll have to go back. The nerve on these vendors.
BEST TECHIE: Enovia Bedford
The tech industry is a predominantly white- and male-dominated industry, so it’s rare when people get to experience a Black woman successfully taking up space within it. Black women and other marginalized groups so often see themselves pushed to the background, their contributions overlooked — but Enovia Bedford says that’s exactly why she’s here.
“There’s so much room for growth in tech, and I’m excited to be a part of making it a more inclusive and innovative field for everyone,” she told Queen City Nerve.
As the founder of Vett Deck, an event marketing platform, she has made it her mission to create inclusive spaces for anyone who needs assistance with raising capital, hosting events or other entrepreneurial duties. She has also worked as North Carolina’s Grow with Google digital coach, a position she’s held for three years, teaching businesses how to grow and scale using Google Tools.
“Seeing more Black women founders in tech leadership roles, in engineering, design, marketing, sales — across the board — is essential,” Bedford said. “It breaks down barriers and shows young girls coming up that this is a space for them too. When we have diverse perspectives in the room, we come up with richer solutions and create a more powerful impact.”
BEST ACTIVIST/ADVOCATE ORGANIZATION: Freedom Fighting Missionaries
As founder and executive director of Freedom Fighting Ministries, Kenny Robinson this year spearheaded the purchase of two acres in University City that will host his organization’s first housing development for justice-involved families, a historic milestone for the city of Charlotte.
Listen: Nooze Hounds: Kenny Robinson with Freedom Fighting Missionaries
The $1 million land deal, finalized on Feb. 29, makes Freedom Fighting Missionaries (FFM) the first Black-founded reentry organization in Charlotte to own land and create housing for public use. The news came after FFM was awarded $2 million in funding by Charlotte City Council in September 2023, plus another $2 million from Mecklenburg County to create supportive housing for individuals reentering society after incarceration and those who have been impacted by the justice system.
“I know how it feels to come home from prison and have to start from scratch,” Robinson said upon closing the land deal. “Now, I am able to support those that are re-entering society so that they can start fresh with sustainable services and viable resources along with a roof over their heads.”
BEST ACTIVIST/ADVOCATE: Shann Fulton, Charlotte Black Pride
Born in Savannah and raised in a small town in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, Charlotte Black Pride (CBP) Chair Shann Fulton (they/he) grew up in an environment that felt far from any open conversations about sexual orientation and gender expression. But, as Fulton was raised on the saying “A closed mouth don’t get fed,” they eventually became more comfortable with the idea that it was time to start talking.
Being born intersex and openly queer, Fulton has always believed in educating others, especially their family members, to counteract ignorance and misinformation. After relocating to Charlotte, Fulton became aware of Charlotte Black Pride and began volunteering in 2013, eventually working their way up to serve as chair of the organization.
The three-time cancer survivor attended CBP board meetings via Zoom while in recovery. According to CBP co-founder Jermaine Nakia Lee, it’s thanks to Fulton’s efforts that CBP now has its most diverse board in the organization’s history. Lee said that, through Fulton’s leadership, CBP has made an intentional effort to ensure youth and young adults, trans and nonbinary identified individuals, people in the faith community and senior citizens are represented on the board.
“There are certain things … in life that are just part of your heart and soul. And for me, Charlotte Black Pride is one of those things,” Fulton told Queen City Nerve. “Whether or not I’m going through chemotherapy or whatever it is I’m going through, I think about the need of the people as well.”
MOST PROMISING POLITICIAN: Jordan Lopez
At just 25 years old, east Charlotte resident Jordan Lopez watched as redistricting left him without a representative in the NC House, as Tricia Cotham’s friends in the Republican Party drew her into a more friendly, conservative district. The young community advocate made the decision to step into that vacuum in an especially tumultuous election year, then faced no opposition either from his own side or from conservatives.
While it was something of a cakewalk to get to the seat, Lopez knows it will be anything but easy working from the minority (though not super-minority) side of things.
When he appeared on Queen City Nerve’s Nooze Hounds podcast in July, he shared how he plans to keep the optimism despite the obstacles at the NC General Assembly. Knowing how tough it is to get spending bills past that invest in communities, Lopez said he’ll instead focus his first term on building networks and connecting with colleagues in rural areas to push against the narrative that there is a rural/urban divide in North Carolina.
“Because in so much of rural North Carolina, what would benefit those communities, it would benefit east Charlotte too,” he said.
MOST CRITICAL ORG IN 2025: Carolina Migrant Network
Launched by Stefania Arteaga and Becca O’Neill in 2020 to provide free legal representation in immigration bond proceedings to individuals detained by ICE, Carolina Migrant Network (CMN) in 2022 merged with Arteaga’s advocacy organization Comunidad Colectiva, which was launched in response to the anti-immigrant rhetoric of that year’s presidential election and the xenophobic policies of the Trump administration.
Listen: Nooze Hounds: Carolina Migrant Network Reshapes the Narrative (2021)
Now in the lead-up to a second Trump administration, as the only nonprofit in North Carolina that offers low-cost or free immigration legal services for individuals detained by ICE, the team at Carolina Migrant Network are gearing up to be on the frontlines in the fight against Trump’s promised mass deportations.
“The presidential election results reopened a deep scar many of us had yet to fully heal from,” read a CMN release on Nov. 7. “Of course, the fear of deportation and family separation never went away, and we remained undeterred from doing what we needed to keep our folks safe. It never stopped Stefanía and our team from going out on the streets and chasing down ICE when they conducted raids and checkpoints in Charlotte, and it won’t stop us now.”
BEST YOUTH MOVEMENT: GenerationNation
GenerationNation gives young people in our community a voice in local government by organizing programs that range from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Youth Council to the student advisor on the CMS school board. Amy Farrell, the group’s (adult) executive director, has grown GenerationNation from an organization best known for launching kids voting into a powerhouse that provides leadership development for the next generation.
As the pace of change in education accelerates, the student advisor position and the Youth Council have helped the CMS Board of Education navigate remote learning during the pandemic and the challenges of educating students in an increasingly connected, screen-heavy world. Democracy only works if every generation is engaged, and GenerationNation is doing the work to make that a reality in our community.
BEST ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZING: Historic West End Green District
West End neighbors Ronald Ross, Mattie Marshall and William Hughes formed the Historic West End Green District (HWEGD) after partnering with local sustainability nonprofit CleanAIRE NC to measure air pollution levels in several historically Black neighborhoods including the Beatties Ford Road corridor. In comparing the results with mostly white neighborhoods where industrial development was unseen, they found more air pollution in the three West End neighborhoods tested than sites in south and east Charlotte.
Today, the resident-led organization works to reduce air pollution, improve health and build a climate-resilient community through advocacy by lobbying against harmful development plans, as they successfully did in December 2023, as well as advocating for more cycling- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure while pushing to preserve what’s left of the area’s tree canopy.
Other components of HWEGD’s work include engaging neighborhood residents in education and advocacy training, continuing to monitor local air quality with portable sensors, and implementing green infrastructure needs such as living green walls, EV charging stations, green bus shelters, strategic tree planting and solar community projects.
“A lot has changed in our community — a lot good, a lot not so good,” Ross told Queen City Nerve in January. “And whichever way it goes, we need to be involved in it and have a voice in what’s going on. People do feel left out. Things are happening and they’re not involved or engaged, so there’s that big skepticism about what’s going on and whether it’s actually a benefit for me. I live in the communities. Is it a benefit to me or is it a benefit for somebody else that’s coming into the community?”
BEST GOTV EFFORT: Clack the Vote
A collaboration between Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce, The Freedom Center for Social Justice, and Charlotte Pride, Clack the Vote was an initiative dedicated to mobilizing and educating queer voters in the wake of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and rhetoric. Organizers partnered with drag performers, the queer ballroom scene and supportive faith organizations to spread awareness and engage new or veteran voters.
The Clack the Vote initiative was nonpartisan, with the only goal to get folks out to vote, according to Bethany Corrigan, a board member of Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce.
“We’re not going to go out there and endorse one candidate over the other,” they said. “But we are endorsing voting … Clack the Vote represents unity and solidarity, not in a partisan way, but in a way that makes people feel safe and affirmed in their decision to vote and participate in the electoral season.”
BEST SPORTS FIGURE: Patrick Agyemang
At the start of the 2024 season, Nerve profiled Agyemang as a Charlotte FC player to watch. Though we expected big things from Big Pat’s second year, none of us could have guessed he would become the team’s starting striker and top goalscorer as the club’s designated players came and went (or returned, in the case of prodigal Polish striker Karol Świderski).
As of this writing, Agyemang is still on a “rookie contract” for Charlotte FC, which means he’s getting paid a salary of just under $72,000 — or $5,500 per goal contribution in 2024. Compare that to Lionel Messi, who got paid a whopping $568,000 per goal or assist before exiting the playoffs on the same day as Charlotte.
While Nerve’s sources have assured us a much-deserved new contract is on the way for Pat, we’re not worried fame or fortune will go to his head. The humble, driven first-round MLS SuperDraft pick worked his way up from Connecticut clubs to Division III to Division I college soccer, and has no intention of stopping now.
BEST INDIE INTRAMURAL: Charlotte Bike Polo
It was under a bridge in Charleston in 2021 that Kevin Raley and fellow members of Fixed Federation, a passionate group of fixed-gear cyclists in Charlotte, came across a sport that would kick-start the return a little-known subculture in the Queen City — one that had been dormant for years — and cultivate a new tight-knit community of cyclists who otherwise would not know each other.
The subculture around bike polo has seen a rise in popularity in Charlotte, with dozens of people showing up to pick-up games that take place twice a week, leading to the start of league play in mid-March. As it turned out, the formation of Charlotte Bike Polo in 2021 did not mark the arrival of the sport in the city, but a resurgence. In the late-2000s, local cyclist Cory Slusher had gotten the green light from Mecklenburg County Park & Rec to renovate an abandoned tennis court at L.C. Coleman Park in west Charlotte and host bike polo matches there.
After players lobbied elected officials and other county staff, Mecklenburg County Park & Rec granted the Charlotte Bike Polo crew access to reserved courts at Sugaw Creek Recreation Center in north Charlotte, which brought more stability to the league.
“It’s a great, healthy, fun sport, and I think the younger players could jump on it and really take it to a next level,” local rider Paul Jarrells said. “I think that’s the biggest message, is that there’s a lot of room to grow.”
BEST CAUSE: Hurricane Helene Recovery
The devastating effects of Hurricane Helene made headlines around the country, but are still felt deeply here at home, many news cycles later. Watching people lose their homes and even their lives brought North Carolinians on either side of the political aisle together to help the communities most affected.
With donation spots all around town located in places like thrift stores, local parks, fire stations and YMCAs, there was no shortage of ways to help, while many in Charlotte’s creative community and other residents made DIY treks to and from Asheville, Swannanoa and the surrounding areas to get resources directly to those who needed them. The team over at Thrift Pony even used their swanky new pink bus to shuttle large quantities of donations to where they needed to go.
Social media was mobilized to direct Charlotteans to the best places to bring supplies or where to give monetary donations. Community organizers found ways to make the process both convenient for donors and massively impactful for community members of western North Carolina. The whole world watched as Charlotte made sure to help its beloved neighbors, and help it did, though the efforts continue in many parts of the area.
BEST NONPROFIT: Care Ring
When Care Ring, the longest operating low-cost health care clinic in Mecklenburg County, launched its mobile unit in December 2022, the organization called the trailer The Bridge because it served as one between health care providers and the community.
Originally located in the Grier Heights Community Center, The Bridge — which provides free health care in under-resourced neighborhoods throughout Charlotte — moved to a 7-Eleven parking lot on Wendover Road so as to see more foot traffic in May 2023.
Since its inception, the Care Ring team has formed similar relationships in other communities, including in the North End, where they have partnered with the North End Community Coalition to serve the eight neighborhoods that fall under that organization’s purview.
“Too often you just arrive somewhere and you assume that people are going to take advantage of a service that you have, and that’s not the case with us,” Tchernavia Montgomery, CEO and executive director at Care Ring, told us in January. “We want to take time to build that relationship and become a partner. We are not the experts, the neighborhood is. The people that are getting the care, they are the experts. We’re not going to do something to them or for them, we’re doing something with them.”
BEST CULTURAL PRESERVATION: Catawba Cultural Center
Dr. Wenonah G. Haire founded the Catawba Cultural Preservation Project in 1989 after a fellow tribal member of the Catawba Indian Nation told her that he was concerned for the future of the tribe, as he had noticed young people becoming disconnected from the culture.
The building that houses the Catawba Cultural Center began its life as a two-room school for Catawba children in 1948, when the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints constructed it to provide an education to Catawba children on the reservation during segregation. In the early 1990s, the school was moved from its original location to where it sits today on Tom Steven Road. The former schoolhouse became the Catawba Cultural Center, where it has served as a hub for the tribal public ever since.
Following some key add-ons and renovations funded by federal ARPA dollars in 2020 and 2021, the center is now buzzing with activity on a daily basis, holding adult workshops, Head Start preschool classes, programming for tribal elders, outdoor educational programming and the offices of the Catawba Cultural Preservation Project. It also has a craft store with rivercane baskets, art from tribal artists and a library archiving documents, crafts, photographs, books and other invaluable pieces of Catawba ephemera.
“Over the years, there are younger generations coming in here,” Dr. Haire told Queen City Nerve in May. “I’m seeing that and this is good. I’m not ready to lay the torch down, but I feel like if I did or if I had to, it would go on. For a long time, I was really scared because I kept thinking, ‘Everybody’s off doing their own little things, and nobody’s thinking about the core of who we are as a people is our culture.’ If you don’t have your culture, you’re no more than an organization.”
BEST MOVE: Charlotte Bilingual Preschool
When school leaders, staff, developers and community members gathered at the site of the new Charlotte Bilingual Preschool (CltBP) location in NoDa, it was with the goal of providing the school with the ability to accommodate 1,500 preschoolers annually by 2039. “The dream begins now,” said Dr. Devonya Govan-Hunt, president of the CltBP Board of Directors.
Launched in 1999, Charlotte Bilingual Preschool prepares Spanish-speaking children for success in school and life by providing multicultural early-childhood education through a 5-star licensed dual-language preschool program. The school moved into the Hickory Grove Elementary School Annex in 2015 in response to growing demand, increasing enrollment by 50% and piloting its Creciendo Juntos program for children 0-3.
Located at 1000 Anderson St., formerly home to Plaza Road Elementary School, the move marks the first time CltBP will have a full facility to call its own. The project is supported by Mecklenburg County using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), one of 75 local projects approved by the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners back in January utilizing $99 million in ARPA funding.
BEST EXPANSION: Block Love Charlotte Day Center
Though Deborah Phillips and the Block Love team moved into their space at the corner of Colorado Avenue and North Graham Street in the summer of 2022, this spring’s grand opening of the Block Love Charlotte Day Center marked a new chapter for the organization, which began as a meal service for people struggling with homelessness and has over time become an organization that offers wrap-around services.
Now members of the Block Love family can drop by the center to take part in free grocery giveaways, request clothing items, access the internet, take part in workforce development, seek help in the search for housing, access health care during regular site visits from Care Ring’s mobile unit and receive services from a number of other partner organizations.
“We’ve always had that need to express to people that we do more than just serve meals,” Phillips told us in May. “I know what they see on our social media, but it’s not always easy to convey to people that we do more than meals, we do more than tents and sleeping bags. Just about everything that we’re now providing in this space, we have been providing in the streets … Being in this space and knowing that now it is tangible, they can actually visibly see it.”
MOST ANTICIPATED DEVELOPMENT/OPENING: The Collective on Tuckaseegee
At its completion, the 13,000-square-foot Collective on Tuckaseegee complex will be home to 10 unique retail units in Enderly Park, and the first openings have given reason to believe the development could be a game changer on the west side.
In early November, The Whitaker Group announced the grand opening of APB Charlotte, a 2,000-square-foot store that aims to become a dynamic hub for skaters, streetwear enthusiasts, and cultural innovators. Located at the Collective on Tuckaseegee, APB Charlotte will serve as a retail sister business to the APB Skatepark, which opened on the Collective property in October and bills itself as the first privately held, Black-owned, publicly accessible non-DIY skatepark in the United States.
“We’ve created APB Charlotte to be a reflection of the community we’re building here in Charlotte, a place where skate, arts, culture and streetwear can thrive together,” said James Whitner, owner and founder of The Whitaker Group, which also operates Social Status in Plaza Midwood. “We are venturing into skate wholeheartedly and hope that the community here in Charlotte can thrive off this effort. This is about giving the city a space where culture, sport and style converge, and we’re just getting started.”
Also on The Collective property on the same week that APB Charlotte opened, The Whitaker Group opened its new 38a gallery, dedicated to serving emerging and established Black, brown and minority creators with exhibits, programs, events and workshops.
MOST ANTICIPATED DEVELOPMENT/OPENING BY A NONPROFIT: Thrive Food Hub
In July, Historic West End Partners (HWEP), a grassroots business district organization advocating for the cultural preservation and economic development of Charlotte’s Historic West End, announced the purchase of a shopping center located on Beatties Ford Road where it plans to open Thrive Food Hub, helping in the organization’s goals to bring fresh food options to the area while supporting small businesses.
The 6,148-square-foot, newly renovated space includes a corner store, a commercial kitchen and an open meeting and dining space.
“The retention of commercial properties, recruitment of small businesses, and filling the gap in services and amenities is an important part of our mission,” J’Tanya Adams, founder and executive director of Historic West End Partners, said in a release announcing the acquisition. “This purchase is one of the tools that will empower us to offer the services our community needs, by taking space and activating it.”
Located at 1121 Beatties Ford Road between Tate Street and Booker Avenue, the shopping center’s current tenants include Beatties Ford Corner Mart and Bite Your Tongue Authentic New Orleans Cuisine.
Plans to expand the center include bringing on two resident chefs and a rotating option of pop-up restaurants that will utilize the kitchen space.
MOST ANTICIPATED INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT/OPENING: Red Line to North Meck
After years of negotiations and false starts, the city of Charlotte finally acquired the right-of-way for the Red Line from Norfolk Southern in September. If everything goes according to plan, we will finally see the Red Line commuter rail travel north to Davidson, Cornelius, and Huntersville (with a starting/ending point in Uptown and stops in Camp North End, Derita, and points nearby).
At this point, it should be clear that we can’t build our way out of traffic with more road lanes, and every new mile of road is a mile that has to be maintained and resurfaced forever at taxpayer expense. Even though years of delays and an antagonistic General Assembly have given us the Red Line at the expense of the Silver Line to Matthews, it should be reason enough to pass the transit referendum should it appear on the ballot next fall.
