Lifeline Canines

Carteret County Farm Bureau Member Deborah Bell spent seven years working as an occupational therapist, helping patients young and old in clinics and private rehabilitation centers. Then in June of 2003, Bell began to train others to work with people with injuries or physical handicaps. However, Bell instructs dogs, not people. After getting additional training in California and her own working service dog, Bell opened Lifeline Canines, a nonprofit organization that trains service and therapy dogs. Bell’s operation in Hubert has developed more than two dozen canines to serve people in a variety of settings. Bell’s passion for this endeavor was stoked greatly when she obtained her own service dog, Santiago, who was born with only one front leg. Bell says Santiago does everything a service dog is meant to do, adding that he further inspires because he’s overcome a physical obstacle to thrive.

Besides potentially serving for someone who is blind or hearing impaired, Bell described at least two other ways these dogs help. She recalled how a child struggled to button a shirt, but the youngster learned how by dressing a therapy dog. Bell also shared how an adult rehabilitation patient with a severe arm injury played fetch with a therapy dog to boost strength and dexterity. A graduate of Lifeline Canines’ training program, Bell is also a regular contributor to a variety of rehabilitation and counseling departments at Carteret General Hospital. “What people don’t even realize is the impact until they start seeing what the dog does,” Bell says. “Motivation is probably the biggest thing they do. It motivates them to do the work and not think about the pain. It helps with depression. It helps lowering blood pressure. It motivates them to work on goals to get through a rehab program just because of the presence of that dog.” On average, Bell and a fleet of volunteers have to work with a dog for at least two years before it can be certified. It’s not an easy process, but one she welcomes.

“Seeing the end result, seeing the dogs out there working, is definitely very rewarding,” Bell says. “The biggest question I get out in public is, ‘How do you give the dogs up? How do you train them for two or three years and be able to give them up?’ Yes, you miss the dogs, but it’s rewarding when you’ve been teaching them all this time and you see them using the skills you taught them and making a difference for people. I don’t want them fully trained sitting around my house. I want them out in the field making a difference.”

Roxboro Rotary Club

It’s been three years since the Roxboro Rotary Club organized a bus trip for all of the living veterans of World War II from Person County to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Members called it the Person County Ride of Honor. Still, the memories of the experiences from May 7, 2007 resonate throughout the community. Person County Farm Bureau Members Bayard Crumpton and Adam White were on the committee that put together the trip for more than 100 veterans, several of whom also were Farm Bureau members. Veterans who lived near each other but hadn’t talked about their war experiences for decades reminisced and soaked in tributes that left many in tears from Roxboro to the nation’s capital. “The opportunity just presented itself,” says Crumpton, who presented the idea to the club after seeing a CBS News report about a similar endeavor in Hendersonville. “The timing was right. The organization was right. It rolled out in an orderly fashion. We were just lucky enough to be around to be a part of it. I feel very fortunate to be in an area and a community like this.” Person County residents got behind the effort so heartily that two years to the day after the trip, the Roxboro Rotary Club used leftover funds to erect a World War II monument in front of the county courthouse. Along with the monument, the trip still is talked about often in coffee shops, tobacco fields and on front porches throughout Person County several committee members say.

“The more we look back at it, the bigger it gets. You treasure it now more than you ever have,” says Debbie Barker, another committee member. Randy King, who also helped to organize the trip, went with his father, who soon will turn 87. Rotary Club members admit that it would be difficult to top the success of the Ride of Honor. “It was a reunion of all Person County folks who all had a common purpose, who all served. It was almost like a family reunion,” says David Bradsher, who also served on the organization committee. “Had they not done what was done, we wouldn’t enjoy the lifestyle we have today. We don’t know where we would be. This was the supreme sacrifice for America during the period of time.”

Shiloh Farm Ministry

Wayne County Farm Bureau Members Jeff and Phyllis Turner had no idea how their daughter’s diagnosis of ADD would affect them. When their daughter went off to summer camp, she came home and all she could talk about were the horses. Inspired by her newfound focus, the Turners bought one horse. They were so impressed with the progress she made that a year later they had 30 horses. And so began Shiloh Farm Ministry, a nonprofit organization that helps children overcome emotional, mental and physical challenges. Their daughter has since grown up, attended college and is back on the farm as the program director. Now, the farm sees up to 30 kids a day being healed through the power of animals. “It’s amazing to see how the kids get in there and sit and hold a little puppy, and the love in that little animal is enough to change them,” Jeff Turner says. “We’ve seen children who were medicated be able to go off their medications, or reduce what they were taking. And children who couldn’t deal with emotional trauma learn how to express themselves.”

Turner recalls a particularly touching story of a boy who had found his deceased mother. “We overheard him crying and telling this horse about how he had found his mother dead,” Turner says. “He wasn’t able to tell that to an adult, but he was able to get it out when talking to the horse.” The organization is operated entirely by the Turner family, volunteers and donations. “They truly give these kids everything they have,” says Phyllis Brown, a social worker who volunteers at the farm and also a mother who sends her children through their programs. “They work so hard to meet the needs of what they see out here. They even have kids that come off the buses with empty lunchboxes and they fill them.” “We are at the point where we need major funding,” Turner says. “We’re growing daily. We have the largest 4-H program in Wayne County and the only program in North Carolina that has the range of animals that we do. We work with social workers through the school system to bring in at-risk youth. We even get people who drive by and stop to see the animals and when they find out what we do, they know of someone we can help.”

The ministry also introduces children to faith and worship. “We’re able to reach people who wouldn’t set foot in a church,” Turner says. “If you come to the farm, you’re bound to learn something about Jesus. But we do it in a tactful way.” And it’s faith that keeps the Turner family going, even through the heartbreaking stories they hear from children coming to the farm and the financial challenges they face to keep the operation going. “The program absolutely seems to work,” Turner says, “but we don’t take any credit for it. It’s like God dumped this in our laps and said ‘run with it’—and we did.”