More than 40 people attended the March 4 event hosted by the Friends Enrichment Program of Moorestown Meeting.
Forty-eight people attended the annual Empty Bowl Dinner fundraiser on March 4 hosted by FEP, the Friends Enrichment Program of Moorestown Meeting. Among those in attendance were FEP kids and their parents, FEP volunteers, guest speaker Paul Carson, Moorestown Mayor Stacey Jordan and Moorestown Council members Victoria Napolitano and Lisa Petriello.
Now 34-years-old, Carson is a former FEP kid who spent years of his adolescence in a MEND affordable apartment with his mother and three younger siblings. Directing his remarks to the young people in the audience, he reminisced about a critical time of his life when he resisted going to school and was at risk of becoming a high dropout.
“What would have happened if I had had no guidance in my life?” Carson said.
He credited FEP for having gotten on his case and worked with him one-on-one persistently, until at last he returned to school.
Carson is a FEP success story. He is happily married and has two children. For the past 14 years, he has been serving in the United States Air Force and has seen combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently stationed in New Jersey, he is enrolled at Wilmington University, where he is pursuing a bachelor’s degree. He expects to graduate this year. In his spare time, he mentors youths in Burlington County, thus giving back to the community. He urged kids to ward off bad influences, listen to the people who have their best interest at heart and “look around them and find someone they might be able to help.”
For FEP children and their parents, the dinner was also an opportunity to meet members of their local government and to talk with them about their interests and about issues we all share as residents of our community.
FEP is a hands-on project run by volunteers. Its mission is to reach out to financially disadvantaged Moorestown children with a message of love and inclusion as well as with a program of Sunday afternoon activities and scholarships for participants to attend summer camp, enroll in art classes or sports clinics, take music lessons or participate in other age-appropriate, life-enhancing programs at no cost to their parents. For more information, call Monique Begg at (856)235–3963.
