Campbell is Compelled to Feed and Clothe the ‘Forgotten Souls’

 

Stanley Campbell Sr. has been feeding and clothing
the homeless for more than 30 years. His "Forgotten Souls
Fall Festival" kicks off Thanksgiving Day.
(Photo by Wiley Henry)

Stanley Campbell Sr. has been feeding and clothing the homeless for more than 30 years. But a dream he had in 2011 was confirmation from God that he needed to do more. 

On Nov. 25 – Thanksgiving Day – Campbell expects to feed, clothe, and dispense hand sanitizer, hygiene products, socks, gloves, hats and scarfs during the 15th annual “Forgotten Souls Fall Festival” from 9 a.m. to noon.  

More than 300 homeless men, women and children benefit from Campbell’s benevolence and charity four times a year during each spring, summer, fall and winter “festival.” 

This season is no different. The homeless will find their way to the parking lot of Campbell’s House of Mtenzi at 1289 Madison Ave. in Midtown Memphis, where a chockful of necessities awaits them.

The House of Mtenzi, a word meaning artist in Swahili, is a museum of historical significance – from civil rights-era artifacts to family mementos in honor of Campbell’s mother, the late Thelma Brownlee, who bore nine children. 

Known by his nickname, “Cam Mtenzi,” Campbell refers to his large family as “Ma & 9 Mustard Seeds.” He is guided by the spirit of his mother and embraced by his siblings.  

It was his mother, he said, who taught her children to always think of people who’re less fortunate. He remembers tagging behind her to community events as early as six years old and witnessing charity and philanthropy in action.

“I saw her working in the trenches in the community [in South Memphis],” he said, “and I couldn’t help but follow my mom.” 

When Campbell managed Hardy’s Shoe Store in his early 20s, for example, he purchased up to 100 pairs of new and discounted tennis shoes with his salary and gifted them to kids in the housing projects. 

“I did this for about three years,” he said. “This was the beginning stage of me taking the bull by the horns.”

In 1997, Campbell managed Marty’s Clothing Store in the Frayser community and took a two-week vacation to experience living homeless on the street. 

“It was early November; it was cool nights,” he said. “I experienced the underground lost society of the homeless.”

After his experience, he was able to relate more to the homeless in their own world with greater understanding and empathy and do as much as he can to help mitigate their plight.

It was in 2011 when Campbell’s dream came to him as a directive of sorts to increase his commitment to the homeless. His dream may seem bizarre to some. But to Campbell, it was a calling from God.

Campbell saw himself in his old neighborhood at the top of a hill looking down. “The hill was made of dead people,” he said. “The whole landscape was made of dead people – the parking lot, the buildings. The whole city was deserted, almost.”

The sordid images of dead people were enough to jar him awake, he said, after which a voice came to him when he was fully conscious. He surmised the voice to be that of God giving him a directive. 

“The voice of The Most High said, ‘Clean it up!’” which Campbell interpreted as his mission to clean up the homeless population in Memphis. It seemed a daunting task, but not impossible given Campbell’s decades-long work in the homeless community. 

“It blew me away,” said Campbell, who first started having dreams and visions in 2008 and writing them down. This one was inscribed on his heart and in his mind, and he responded forthwith.

The “Forgotten Souls Fall Festival” is the byproduct of Campbell’s experience with the homeless population and his temerity to fulfill a dream after heeding the voice of “The Most High.”

Campbell has the will and the determination to help people who’re less fortunate, but there aren’t any grants so far to match his big heart. He does receive small donations – both monetary and in-kind – from individuals, small businesses, and organizations.  

He calls them “The Forgotten Souls Coalition.”

When hungry and homeless people are brought to Campbell’s attention, he springs into action, with or without funding, he said. Funding simply helps to defray the cost of bringing his ideas to fruition.

Either way, Campbell is driven to tend the needs of the homeless population – even if he must spend his own money. 

“They’re still our brothers and sisters,” he said. “That’s why I never stop.”

Redevelopment of Northside and Surrounding Neighborhood Draws Myriad of Suggestions

Courtney C. Jennings, senior financial analyst for 

ComCap Partners, displays a redesign of Northside High 

School and the original facade. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

Northside High School, once the anchor in the Klondike-Smokey City community, was shuttered in 2016 due to minuscule enrollment. But the sounding of the death knell did not fall on death ears.

The alumni and community residents wanted to know if plans are afoot to repurpose the beautiful and spacious orange-brick building at 1212 Vollintine Ave. that was built in 1968 for an 1,800-student body.

A nonprofit group, Northside Renaissance, Inc., has hosted several meetings over the course of months seeking input from the community prior to hosting a charrette Thursday, Nov. 11, at Perea Elementary School, formerly Klondike Elementary, Northside’s next-door neighbor.

The nonprofit and its partners provided a design update for the renovation of Northside so that residents and community stakeholders would have an idea of what is possible for the vacant school building.

Charette attendees were inquisitive. “Is this going to be a public high school?” one man inquired. The answer was no. Shelby County Schools closed Northside and most likely won’t open another one in its place.

Preliminary design concepts for the building include arts and studio spaces, technical training, retail options, healthcare access, restaurants/coffee shop, a community garden, fitness and wellness opportunities, workforce development, affordable and senior housing, and more.  

“We’re trying to take advantage of an empty building that has been vacant for five years into an asset that will benefit Klondike and the greater North Memphis community,” said Archie Willis III, founder and president of ComCap Partners.

ComCap Partners is a local development firm working for Northside Renaissance, Inc. along with other partners – Klondike Smokey City Community Development Corp., The Works Inc., Neighborhood Preservation Inc., Pyramid Peak Foundation, and others – to prevent the building from laying waste.

“The idea is to use this as an anchor to help stimulate the revitalization of Klondike,” Willis explained. “This is the biggest piece of real estate and the largest structure in Klondike.”

Other queries included the projected cost of the project and the completion date. Willis said the project would cost millions – perhaps as much as $50 million or more – and the completion date is yet to be determined.

“This is a very complicated project turning a school building into something other than a school building,” he said. “It’s a very expensive project. We’re working on a financial plan.”

Lauren Tolbert, project designer and project manager for LRK, reemphasized the potential uses for Northside as a mixed-use facility – including reactivating the gymnasium and auditorium.

LRK (Looney Ricks Kiss) is a nationally full-service architectural, planning and interior design firm located in Memphis. Northside is one of the company’s projects currently on the drawing board.

The school’s gymnasium will be an asset to the community, Tolbert said. The space could be utilized for “afterschool programs, youth volleyball and basketball tournaments.” 

The auditorium was one of the largest among Shelby County Schools. Regarding the total project, Tolbert said, “We want this to be more focused on the neighborhood that’s here.”

Iola Casey took in the information and processed it accordingly. “It’s a great plan if we can only utilize it and make it available to the people in the Klondike area,” said Casey, mother of Fyron Irby and Sheila Irby, both graduates of Northside.

“We’re the ones who watched the school go down,” she said. “We know what it has been; we know what it can be. We’d love to see it revitalized and come back to what Northside should be.”

Overall, Casey is impressed with the revitalization plan for Northside and the surrounding neighborhood where blight and decay are evident. But she is concerned about the proposed living spaces.

“With everything that will be going on…and the living quarters on the third floor…it seems like a lot of activities for senior living,” she said. “I’m kind of wondering if that’s a good idea. It’s needed, but I don’t know.”

Katherine Larsha’s focus on Northside and the neighborhood is acute. But her vision for the school and the neighborhood – where residents are grappling with poverty and their homes in disrepair – differs in scope and perception. 

A 1983 graduate, she said matter-of-factly, “We have a medical need, like physical therapy. It could be a school for nursing, CNAs (certified nursing assistant), even acupuncture.”

A neighborhood clinic is proposed, but Larsha is not exactly on the same page with the team of planners and developers, which, at the onset, began soliciting suggestions from community stakeholders like herself. 

About affordable housing, Larsha said unabashedly, “What this is is gentrification. They’re saying they are gonna make it low-income. The majority of these people – like (the) Uptown (community) is now – will not be here.” 

Pointing to a redesign of Northside’s exterior, Larsha said, “This space does not reflect the people living here now. This is what gentrification is.” 

Organ and Tissue Donations Can Save Lives

Amber Pettis (left) was fortunate to get a donated in August of 2015. 
Meanwhile, Telisa Franklin, multicultural relations coordinator for 
the Mid-South Transplant Foundation, is promoting awareness 
of organ and tissue donations to save lives.

Of the more than 106,000 people on the national waiting list for an organ, eye or tissue donation to become available, 4,000 of them are Mid-Southerners (Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi), according to the Mid-South Transplant Foundation. 

But there aren’t enough registered donors to save each one of them or to give them the ultimate gift of life. Startling statistics bear this out – and they’re rather grim, almost unimaginable.

Eighty-three percent of patients overall need a kidney. Ten will die each day while waiting on a life-saving organ; and a new name is added to the national waiting list every 10 minutes.

Promoting awareness and educating the public about the importance of organ and tissue donations can help allay one’s fear and dispel any myths and misconceptions about organ procurement and transplantation. 

At least that’s what keeps Randa Lipman at the grindstone as manager of community outreach for the federally designated organ procurement organization, which helps to facilitate the organ donation process between donor families and recipients.

“We try to educate the public about the benefits of donating so that more lives can be saved,” Lipman said. “We know in times of tragedy [that] one person can save up to eight lives with solid organs and another 75 with tissue donations.”

Amber Pettis received a kidney in August of 2015. She was 28 and reasonably healthy, she thought. A year after receiving a diagnosis of end-stage renal failure, the donated kidney was her new lease on life. 

To this day, she still doesn’t know why her kidneys failed. The doctors couldn’t figure it out, either, she said. She didn’t have pre-existing conditions, high blood pressure, or diabetes – just the onslaught of renal failure.

“I went to the doctor with what I thought was just a stomach virus,” Pettis, working in transportation as a supply chain leader, remembers. “From that appointment, I learned that I was in end-stage renal failure.”

In fact, Pettis said the day she was diagnosed, she had just made it back to Memphis after completing an out-of-town trip for her job. “I was in corporate America making a life,” she said. 

As one would expect, Pettis was shocked, devastated; her life was upside down. After being connected to a dialysis machine for a year, a matching kidney was located. It saved her life.

“I was just a young adult. I had finished college, finished graduate school,” Pettis said. “My mother was devastated…uncles, cousins. Going through that situation gave me a new appreciation for life.”

Telisa Franklin recently joined the team at MSTF to help save lives and to give others, like Pettis, hope and, in her words, “a new appreciation for life.” But she is concerned with the high rate of organ failure in the Black community. 

Data from the National Kidney Foundation are alarming: While African Americans comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 35 percent of people with kidney failure.

“I am a champion for African Americans. I want everyone to understand how important it is to give life and to give hope,” said Franklin, MSTF’s multicultural relations coordinator.

“Many African Americans have high blood pressure and what we call sugar diabetes, which, literally, contribute to having kidney issues,” she said, calling attention to the proliferation of dialysis clinics “in our communities.”

Dialysis and kidney transplants are two options available for patients grappling with end-stage kidney disease. The former can be a grueling experience for patients dialyzing at least three times a week for three hours or more.

As a minister, Franklin said it is imperative and a blessing to give life – and equates the rib that God had taken from Adam and giving it to Eve as the world’s first transplant, biblically speaking. 

She continued: “You’d never know, a heart or a kidney could extend the life of someone who may discover a cure for cancer or become the next president of the United States.” 

It’s about giving back, she said. “Why not donate your liver, kidney or pancreas instead of taking those good organs with you to the other side when someone can use them.”

What Pettis went through after the shock of end-stage renal failure forced her to depend solely on family and the community. At that juncture in her life, she didn’t have a choice in the matter. 

“My situation caught my family off guard,” she said. “Organ failure, in general, regardless of what it is…whether it's the heart or kidney…it impacts not only you but those around you.”

After her yearlong ordeal on dialysis, Pettis is a firm believer that organ and tissue donations save lives. 

“You’re have a whole new meaning [of life] when you go through what I've gone through,” she said.

LeMoyne Taps Olympian Rochelle Stevens as its Head Men/Women Track and Field Coach

Olympian Rochelle Stevens (center) was tapped by William Anderson,
LeMoyne-Owen College's athletics director, to coach the school's track
and field program. Dr. Vernell Bennett-Fairs is LOC's president.
(Photo by Wiley Henry)

Dr. Rochelle Stevens – a silver medal winner in track and field at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, and a gold medal winner in the same event at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta – is LeMoyne-Owen College’s new head men and women track and field coach.

William Anderson, LOC’s athletics director, made the announcement at the college on Oct. 28 during a news conference with LOC President Dr. Vernell Bennett-Fairs, who’d tapped Anderson in July to run the athletics department.

Former NBA head coach Lionel Hollins, recently selected as LOC’s assistant men’s basketball coach, joins Head Coach Gawen DeAngelo “Bonzi” Wells, a former NBA standout, to complete the ensemble. 

This is an awesome step “to increase our academic and athletic programs,” Bennett-Fairs said, then paid homage to Stevens: “We’re honored to have an Olympian.”

Charged with restoring LOC to its former glory, Anderson phoned Stevens in August, who mulled over the opportunity and then agreed to take on the coaching duties at the historically Black college. 

“It is an honor and pleasure to introduce our new head men and women track and field coach,” Anderson said. “We’re really excited about the spirit, the passion and the expertise she’s going to bring to start our track and field program again.”

LOC’s track and field program has been inactive since 1998. Though Stevens’ first day on the job is Nov. 8, the season kicks off in the fall of 2022. The first meet will be indoors in January 2023, she said.

 Stevens, an 11-time All-American, an NCAA champion, and a member of 8 halls of fame, was gracious in her acceptance speech and said to Bennett-Fairs: “Our goal is to make you look good.”

Bennett-Fairs hoisted both thumbs, indicating approval, then clapped.

“I’m looking forward to shaping and molding our student athletes,” the new coach said. “I have all the secret ingredients that I would love to share to help expose those athletes and let everybody know who we are.”

Stevens said she’s looking forward to the task. “We are looking forward to putting LeMoyne-Owen College on the map again,” she said.

Leonard Braxton, who coached Stevens in track and field at Morgan State University in Maryland, said Stevens is a role model and that her first time at coaching is a great opportunity for her and the school. 

“She has a lot to give. She brings enthusiasm and determination [to the job],” said Braxton, who lives in Phoenix, Ariz. “She strives for excellence. That’s how she functions.”

Braxton made a special trip to Memphis to support Stevens. Since she must rebuild the track and field program, he would advise her to be patient. “It’s not going to happen overnight,” he said.

Even so, Braxton is certain Stevens will prevail. “She has the world at her feet,” he said.

Stevens’ mother and Olympic coach, Apostle Beatrice H. Davis, is just as excited for her daughter and her opportunity to coach. Like Braxton, she believes Stevens will do a good job. 

“It’s her passion,” said Davis, who pastors Word of Life Healing Ministry. “It’s a great opportunity for her to help them and equip them in life,” she said, referring to the student athletes. “It’s a challenge, but she’s up to the challenge.”

“I have a skill-set to be able to train others. Because of my track meet and foundation. I’ve helped so many athletes with their training, with the nutritional side, the mental preparation of it,” Stevens said.

Over 30,000 athletes, she said frankly. 

To avoid a conflict, the new coach conferred with the NCAA. She got her answer: The Rochelle Stevens Invitational Track Meet has been grandfathered in since it’s been ongoing for 30 years.

“So, it would not be a conflict of interest or in violation of any NCAA rules,” she underscored.

The Rochelle Stevens Foundation, launched in 1990 to inspire and develop the next generation of track stars, will continue as well.

“I want to encourage our young people to dream and to dream big,” said Stevens. “The turning point for me [in accepting the position] was to be able to give – and to give at a higher level.” 

A product of the Orange Mound community, Stevens spring-boarded to success from Melrose High School. Her mettle was first tested on the track and field there before she blazed a path to the Olympics. 

 “I just don’t want to let my athletics director down, and the community down,” Stevens said.