2006 Nancy Susan Reynolds Awards

2006 award in the category of Advocacy

Faith Lockwood

Winston-Salem

Faith Lockwood is an incredible individual committed to the most vulnerable in society – children. Lockwood has devoted her life to often-forgotten, challenged children. These children don’t have easy-to-understand conditions. They have multiple challenges and usually suffer severe setbacks that require years of treatment and support.

Lockwood’s advocacy and service to disadvantaged children include five distinct areas of work: pregnant teens, abused children, juveniles who have committed a crime, physically and emotionally challenged children, and teenage parents. As a social worker for more than 20 years, she has been at the side of thousands of children, including children having children.

For the past seven years, Lockwood has served the mental and physical health needs of an average of 350 pregnant girls a year in middle and high schools in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. Even though the need is so apparent, her position is not a funded one, so every year she has to raise funds for her program.

Lockwood is a great advocate because she has the physical, intellectual, and spiritual strength to work tirelessly for individuals and the persistence, creativity, and boldness to bring about broader change. She has created a summer work program for 15 to 17 year old mothers, recruiting the employees, the employers and sponsors, and then running the program. She was instrumental in founding the Forsyth Adolescent Health Care Coalition. She also trains pediatric residents at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, helping them understand the needs of adolescent mothers and their children.

2006 award in the category of Personal Service

Margaret Clinard

Greensboro

Margaret Clinard of Greensboro has been a lifelong advocate for children with a special talent for mobilizing others to meet their needs. Over the past 25 years or so, 100 children for whom she has provided foster care through the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina have affectionately called her “Momma.”

You would think a houseful of children in limited public housing quarters would be enough to satisfy her motherly instincts. But that has never been the case. Where she has seen children in need, she has responded – organizing a baseball team in her Hampton Homes neighborhood and gathering up at-risk kids from around Greensboro to expand their experiences and motivate them through Future Ladies and Men of Tomorrow.

Margaret Clinard is resourceful. She knows where potential help lies, and she is willing to ask for it. Children come into her home with special needs. She becomes their advocates, finding tutorial services or creating them herself. She works with teachers, counselors and others whose lives or professions touch those of her children. She urges young people to be the best they can be, and she constantly looks for ways to help them take another step forward.

This woman with limited education herself has taught trained, social service professionals many a lesson. They speak of her compassion, her unconditional love, her advocacy for children while also noting that she is consistent, that she has rules, and that she has expectations. One of those expectations is that a child will remain in school and achieve to the best of his or her ability.
 

2006 award in the category of Race Relations

Willie Ratchford

Charlotte                    

Willie Ratchford grew up in public housing almost within sight of Charlotte’s imposing City Hall. Now, he holds a pivotal position in local government, influencing the lives of people throughout Mecklenburg County as Executive Director of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee (CRC).

After college, he took a job with the City and has spent the last 31 years working in City Hall, including 27 years in various positions in the CRC. Since 1994, he has been Executive Director.

Charlotte has changed dramatically, and while there are still race relations issues, the CRC has been credited with enhancing opportunities for all citizens; promoting understanding, respect, and goodwill, and providing channels of communication among various racial, religious, and ethnic groups.

He is known for his tact and diplomacy, as well as his toughness. Ratchford is rarely, if ever, intimidated, even when dealing with emotional citizens arguing over whether a Confederate flag should be flown in a public cemetery or confronting an elected official who, in a public forum, made a sweeping racial generalization.

Ratchford addresses both obvious and subtle racism. Without the use of testers in situations such as housing discrimination, for example, many people would not be aware of racism because the external treatment is pleasant. In reality, however, behind closed doors, racist behavior may occur. As Ratchford says, “Unfortunately, sometimes you cannot change the racist attitude, but you can use the law to change the racist behavior so it does not manifest into action.”