Staff profile: Connie Colter

Ready for School, Ready for Life Parent Liaison Connie Colter came to our organization through the Guilford Parent Leader Network (GPLN) and its Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI)training.

“I empower families to make a difference within Guilford County and also offer them support,” Colter said. “I build one-on-one relationships with GPLN families and encourage other families in Guilford County to join our group. It’s so important to have a support system as a parent.”

Photo of Connie ColterThey say if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.  Colter is currently earning her degrees in special education and criminal justice while parenting five children and working at Ready Ready.  Her long-term goal is to provide quality education to juvenile delinquents by starting a school for them. She intends to get to the root of the problem instead of watching them get passed along the system.

“Once they have the label ‘juvenile delinquent’, it sticks with them for the rest of their educational life,” Colter said. “These children don’t receive the standard quality of education and this causes a greater issue. What would happen if we took the time to understand the root of why they may have lashed out or committed a crime and help them work past it?”

Colter says her interest in education and social justice comes from her mother’s 30-year career working with children who have exceptional needs. “Growing up learning not to judge people, but looking beyond what society may say about them is so important,” Colter said. “I learned to give back and treat people how you’d want to be treated if you were in their shoes.”

When she’s not studying, writing and submitting papers, parenting, or creating a support network for Guilford County Parents, Colter likes to paint, cook, and plan events. She’s an especially big fan of celebrating people’s birthdays.

Partner Spotlight: Out of the Garden Project

Out of the Garden Project began as a family project to help solve food insecurity for six to ten families at Morehead Elementary School fourteen years ago. Now each month, more than 800 volunteers collect food, sort it in the warehouse, create packages for families, and deliver packages to schools and other locations.

Additionally, more than 3,000 families in the Piedmont-Triad are served each month through the organization’s Fresh Mobile Markets – free mobile food pantries that distribute about 65 pounds of fresh produce, bread, meat, and shelf-stable items to families in more than 25 locations in Guilford and neighboring counties. The markets are for families with children 0-18 years of age who must qualify to receive the food.

“It’s literally like a grocery store on wheels,” said Executive Director and President Don Milholin. “We want to help the whole person, the whole family. It’s a chance for people to have dignity in having food they can take home and gather around their table.”

In addition to the Fresh Mobile Markets and a 17,500-foot warehouse at The Church on 68, Out of the Garden has created a shared-use kitchen so food entrepreneurs can make low-risk packaged food to sell and an urban teaching farm. Originally located in downtown Greensboro, the farm has moved to McCleansville, where more crop acreage is available. A USDA grant for innovation will allow the organization to increase its harvest, which will be sold to create more funding for the organization and its projects.

Out of the Garden partners with Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) in several ways, but the most recent is participation in our Continuous Quality Improvement process.

“We’re excited about the CQI process and just getting started in the work,” said Beth Crise, director of development and operations, “We’re thinking about how we can put policies and procedures in place at the urban teaching farm to improve communication and become more and more successful. We can also streamline volunteer operations in our warehouse to rotate food in and out more efficiently to better serve families.”

“We believe we’re the most influential food partnership in the Piedmont and the largest non-governmental agency not affiliated directly with Feeding America in the area,” Milholin said. “Our mission isn’t just to give out food. Our mission is to provide stepping stones out of poverty.”

Out of the Garden will soon open a store at The Market Shoppes on Sandy Ridge Road to sell produce grown at the urban teaching farm. “We’re growing cabbage collards, raising chickens to sell eggs, and planting strawberries for next spring,” Milholin said. “We’re focused on creating a community where no one goes hungry.”

The Duke Endowment visits Ready Ready

The Duke Endowment Trustees, Ready for School, Ready for Life Board of Directors and staff gathered on August 29, 2022 for a site visit focused on the early childhood ecosystem. The Duke Endowment Trustees learned how children’s lives are affected by their different environments and how systems and organizations impact their development directly and indirectly, and what Ready Ready as a backbone organization is doing about it.

Panel discussions featured experts from organizations such as Family Connects, HealthySteps, Nurse-Family Partnership, Community Navigation, Guilford County Schools, Guilford County Government, Children’s Home Society, Bringing Out the Best, United Way of Greater Greensboro, shift_ed, Every Baby Guilford, Cone Health, N.C. General Assembly, N.C. A&T State University, the Foundation for a Healthy High Point, Duke University, and the Guilford County Health Department.

Please enjoy this photo gallery of the day’s events. Photo credit: Elizabeth Larson Photography