Big Buddy program creates connections and mentorships
Buddying Up
by STEPHEN GAY
photography by ALLISON POTTER
N
ISSA AMARO sits comfortably in Susan Folk’s living room with
her legs pulled up in an armchair while Folk and her husband,
Norm, sandwich their dog on the couch across the room. Folk is
talkative and expressive and Amaro is quiet and reflective, yet
they make a complementary combination. Their friendship is
evident as they bounce off each other to tell stories and share memories.
In many ways, they could not be more different. Amaro is a 16-year-old 10th-grader
at New Hanover High School and Folk is a working mother of two adult
daughters. Yet here they are, telling stories of swimming together in a hurricane.
Folk and Amaro met in June through the Cape Fear Volunteer Center’s Big Buddy
program and have been hanging out a few times a week since then.
Nissa Amaro and Susan Folk enjoy an evening on Wrightsville Beach in November.
Come see how
we do things
Breaking the bondages of homelessness
and poverty by responsibly sowing Godly
love and material resources. First Fruit
is a one-stop-shop for the poor offering
medical care, psychiatric counseling,
meals, clothes, showers, boxes of food,
transitional housing for 12 single
women, and jobs.
Rick and Lee Anna Stoker
2750 Vance St., Wilmington, NC 28412
OFFICE HOURS: M-F 9 am–2 pm
910-794-9656
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PO Box 957 • Wilmington, N.C. 28402
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