- [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- Just ahead on "Carolina Impact," we take you inside a community cafe, teaching job skills to those with disabilities.

Plus, how a Charlotte company introduces girls to the world of STEM and a local clothing store catches eyes with its nostalgic and trendy apparel.

"Carolina Impact" starts right now.

(lively music) (logo swooshes) Good evening, thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Amy Burkett.

Employment rates for people with disabilities hit a record high last year of about 22.5%.

These employers are seen as disability champions and research shows, on average, champions achieved 30% higher profit margins.

Abound Health empowers people with disabilities throughout our region and across the country.

Jason Terzis joins us with more.

- It's one of those organizations you've likely never heard of, but is working hard every day to help fill a void within our society.

Abound Health's programs are dedicated to serving and helping to train those with special needs, providing day programs focused on learning and skills development.

I recently spent the better part of a day at one of these programs to find out what it's all about.

(light swooshes) (upbeat music) The room is packed with people enjoying lunch, but this isn't a restaurant and everyone here is a volunteer.

- I volunteer a lot in soup kitchens and different places.

I'm like a professional volunteer, as I call it.

- [Jason] Erin Fox-Clough wears a lot of hats around the Mill Grove Church of Midland.

- Well, Erin is our praise leader here at the church.

- But we gonna praise the Lord first.

Everybody okay with that?

- [All] Yes!

- [Jason] From guitarist and singer to praise and worship leader, (musicians singing indistinctly) And she does it all with a servant's heart.

- Erin's been a godsend for our church.

The people here love her.

Her work, her music is great.

She's a great musician.

- [Jason] Erin is doing something not many people get the opportunity to do.

Combining her faith and passion with her quote, real job out at Abound Health where she facilitates day programs for adults with special needs.

- The need with my group is to learn job skills so they don't always have the opportunities, people to allow them to come in and learn these things they need to learn and give them a chance.

- [Jason] Then one day an idea popped into Erin's mind.

- So I was sitting at home and then I was like, okay, I work in this field, which I love this community and this church has such a big heart and I was like, and they have this facility and they want to do more outreach programs and I'm like, you know what I mean?

Why don't we just, I mean, it's a no brainer, it's like God already put the ingredients there.

We just kinda stirred it up to see what would happen.

- [Jason] Erin's idea, create a community cafe where Abound Health special needs adults work as cafe employees, setting up and serving lunch to church and community members.

- What can we offer this group, this adult special needs group that would encourage them, would allow them to come together and would also be an outreach for the church?

Because we see that we're providing a blessing to them, but what we experience when they come here is that they bless us.

- It gives our individual the opportunity to serve and learn a new skill set.

So that has been great for our individuals to actually experience hands on what to do and what to expect in case they ever get a job in the real world.

- [Jason] The cafe started just over a year ago, in March of 23.

It's open and free to the public on the third Thursday of each month.

- So I want them to improve upon their skills set that they have and be proud of it.

- Because it gives them self-esteem.

It gives them self respect.

- [Jason] On mornings, the cafe is open, Erin works with the group to get things in order, from unfolding tablecloths.

- Aaliyah, that's perfect.

That's exactly, exactly how we need it.

- [Jason] To dealing with centerpieces and name tags.

- All right, Tom, I'ma put this on you.

- Yeah.

- It's giving them a sense of pride that they need, just putting that apron on.

We don't have shirts yet, so we gotta get some shirts made, but just having an apron, that's the uniform, right now they got name tags.

So I'll have y'all outside the door.

Good morning.

Welcome to Mill Grove.

- [Jason] In the kitchen, another group of volunteers rolls the meatballs and gets everything ready for feeding everyone.

The cafe officially opens with a little music.

♪ Open the eyes of my heart Lord ♪ - [Jason] And words of encouragement from Mill Grove pastor, Steve Brown.

- And just try to give them something from God's word that would encourage their life, would tell them how special and unique they are, because that's what we believe, that God has created each person for something unique.

- [Jason] Then finally, it's time to eat.

Plates of homemade meatballs, rice, green beans and sweet rolls are served up to all in attendance.

- We actually prep the food on site and we allow them to be servers.

We allow them to pass out drinks.

They set up the tables and they also help clean up.

- We enjoy coming out.

We enjoy cooking, serving, and giving back to the community.

It's an excitement thing that we do every month.

- We have the ability to do something and you're being blessed.

It's great to bless someone else, you know, to be a blessing for someone else who can't always do what you're able to do.

- [Jason] The food is all donated, thanks in large part to longtime church member, Rick McManus.

- Rick has some cows and we found some other farmers who would raise cows and then was willing to donate that to charity, donate that to us.

- We found that farmers, local farmers that had cattle, they were looking ways to, how they could use their cattle for the Lord's work, so we kind of put it all together.

- It's just a beautiful thing of different people coming together and making this happen for the benefit of this community that is so very special.

- [Jason] The impact the community cafe has on the Abound Health special needs adults can't truly be measured, but it goes way beyond just serving a meal.

- It means so much to them, a lot of them.

They think of it as having a job, you know, even though they're not getting paid, but they do have a job and they serve us and it's just, it's a humbling experience for me.

- Just being able to talk to somebody new, that's a goal.

You know, that's a big deal.

- [Jason] The cafe is turning out to be a win for everyone involved, from the special needs adults, learning new skills to the church, doing more outreach.

- It's a situation where you go to try to help someone and they actually, by the end of the day, they've blessed you, they've helped, they've helped me.

I go home every time from this feeling better about myself, feeling better about the world, feeling better about mankind and what we're doing together.

- People that aren't around the adults with special needs community, they get to be introduced to this community and see how lovely they are, it's how capable they are when they come in.

- Hey Will.

- And at the end of the day, Erin is serving her purpose, - Oh, oh Lord, who are all those people?

It fills my heart, it really does and I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing when it all clicks like that and I feel like God's got a bigger plan behind it, you know?

- What an amazing program.

Jason, what's next for Community Cafe?

- Well, the number one thing in topping that list is simply getting the word out and oftentimes, as we know, that's sometimes the hardest part.

The Mill Grove Church of Midland is east of Charlotte, directly east.

It's kind of out by Mint Hill and Harrisburg.

They would absolutely love for more people in the community to take advantage of this free opportunity.

You don't have to be a church member, you don't even have to live in Midland.

All are welcome, it's the third Thursday of every month, so it should be, you know, they, hey, come on out.

They just say it's a win-win for everybody.

- I was just gonna say, perfect example of that win-win.

Thanks Jason.

- Yep.

- When most people think of the STEM industry, science, technology, engineering, and math, they often think of men.

Research shows that men fill about two thirds of those STEM jobs across the US.

A Charlotte company is working to even the playing field for women, by working with fifth graders.

"Carolina Impacts," Dara Khaalid and Videographer John Branscum show us how it works.

(light swooshes) (bright music) - [Erica] Smart.

- [Kids] Girls.

- [Erica] Smart.

- [Kids] Girls.

- [Dara] These are two words you'll hear shouted every Friday, like a mantra at Dorothy J. Vaughn Academy of Technology.

- Quick review and then I'm gonna let you all get started on your projects.

- [Dara] Inside the library, Erica McLaren from the company's Smart Girls HQ leads a session for a room full of energetic fifth grade girls.

- They are working on a community problem, so we had some volunteers create videos on things that they think are issues in the community of Charlotte and the girls, they watch the videos and as a team they decided which problem they want to focus on.

So now they are in that brainstorming a solution process.

(children chattering) - I know.

- [Dara] McLaren says their organization uses exercises like this in their Smart Girls Squad program, because it's a gentle and fun way of introducing students to STEM.

- We're playing music, I'm telling jokes, I want them to have a relationship.

We're only there once a week, so it's like, it's a short time to get in there and really make an impact, but through that, unknowing to them, they're starting to loosen up and now they are building that confidence of, oh wait, I did just build this.

- [Dara] Throughout the year they've been able to build a lot, like Bead a DNA key chains, which teach them about genetic biology, colorful light up headbands that focus on electrical engineering, and.

- We built an electric fan and we got to build a circuit, the motherboard, it was really interesting.

- [Dara] Fifth grader, Amanda Dixon tells me she enjoys the hands-on activity she does with Smart Girls HQ and they encourage her to think positively.

- I've learned to work things out, 'cause you don't always get help all the time, so you have to learn how to work things out in hard circumstances, but things can still be fun and it's what you make of it.

- [Dara] As Dixon learns new skills, she's also gaining the confidence needed for a male dominated industry.

- I especially love this group, because they want to encourage girls that you can do anything you want to do.

It's not just boys.

You can be in science if you want to, and you can still be as much as the girl as you want to.

- [Dara] Some of her classmates agree.

- Usually boys keep saying girls can't do it, but we're proving them wrong.

- [Dara] And there's a lot to prove wrong.

The latest data from the National Science Foundation shows that 65% of people employed in STEM careers are men, and 35% are women.

- We found that we had more male students applying for the school, which increased a number of, the number of male students in each classroom.

So we were averaging four to five girls per classroom because it's a lottery base.

So we partnered with Smart Girls and decided what can we do to increase visibility of girls and females in STEM fields?

- So we're computer science immersion schools- - [Dara] As I took a stroll with Principal Toyia Matthews, she told me she's been impressed with what she's seen from the program.

- For me personally, I'm a female coming from a small town in Asheville, North Carolina, so I didn't know anything about STEM, STEM fields, just didn't really have that background knowledge - [Dara] For the company's founder and CEO, Abi Olukeye, that's one of the main reasons the program is already in four CMS elementary schools.

- I meet a lot of adults that say that they wish STEM was an option for them.

This started because I couldn't imagine my daughters growing up in a world that still had limited options for girls.

- [Dara] The same limited option she faced as a Nigerian teenager new to the US.

- When I went to that guidance counselor and I said, "Hey, I'm really interested in programming," her response was, "Well, you know that girls usually are not interested in programming" and I thought it was just really strange because I was still new to the United States and so my cultural background, I just was not used to something that girls couldn't do.

- [Dara] But she didn't let this discourage her.

Instead she used it as fuel to push her through two college degrees, a successful STEM career and in 2018, becoming the head of her own company.

- We hope that these girls walk away, one, discovering a lot more options that they knew they had, having confidence, you know, that self-efficacy that they can do it if they choose to.

- [Dara] Visiting schools isn't an all that Smart Girls HQ does.

They also create interactive STEM kits like these, that they sell internationally and they press powerful words onto T-shirts.

- The shirt says, "explorers, designer, scientist, engineer, founder and maker" and essentially those are our six pillars.

- [Dara] Although there are many words that the organization hopes the girls hold onto, these seven neon words hanging on the wall.

- "Dear Smart Girl, you can be anything."

- [Dara] Sum it up.

For "Carolina Impact," I'm Dara Khaalid.

- Thank you, Dara.

This fall, the organization plans to launch a national program.

Girls across the country will then be able to participate.

Well for those big special occasions, we often set a table with our wedding China or those cherished dishes from grandma, but what happens when we break a piece and the style has been discontinued?

Well, there's a business right down the road from Charlotte specializing in replacing broken or missing China, crystal and flatware.

It's called Replacements Limited.

Producer Russ Hunsinger takes us to the showroom that's half business and half tourist attraction.

It might have that hard to find pattern or vintage piece you've been looking for.

(light swooshes) (cup dings) (chilled music) - It's a unique business.

(paper rustling) - We've been told multiple times that we are the mecca of tableware.

(chilled music) We are at Replacements Limited in McLeansville, North Carolina.

We are the world's largest retailer of vintage and new tableware, silver and estate jewelry.

(chilled music) We have more than 470,000 patterns now in our database.

We have more than 11 million pieces of tableware in our collection today.

(chilled music) - Well, I love the hunt, I love finding rare things and I find things all the time we've never had before and we get in on an average about 70,000 pieces weekly here.

Well, let's see, today is what Tuesday?

I haven't been to a flea market since yesterday.

That is spectacular.

- The business was started by our founder and CEO, Bob Page.

He lived for his hobby, which was going to thrift stores, estate sales, flea market.

- [Bob] When I first got started and was working outta my attic, there were just a few hundred pieces, but today about 90% of our business is online.

We get five to 6 million visitors a month to our website in our busiest season.

(bright chilled music) - I like this with the little quail.

- We make people happy.

We do.

- [Keith] We buy from a variety of sources.

We also work with individuals so that if you have a pattern that you may no longer need, you can give us a call.

We offer restoration, specifically silver restoration.

We have a very talented group of silversmiths (bright jazz music) - [Bob] And we get a lot of tourists that come through and are fascinated.

- Collectors are looking for everything and we have something for everyone.

Preserving and archiving tableware patterns from throughout the centuries is very important to us here at Replacements.

There's a museum of all these beautiful treasures that we've collected.

Oftentimes we're asked what is our most expensive pattern?

Sometimes we're asked what is our oldest pattern, and in this instance, they're pretty much one and the same.

This pattern behind me, which is Flora Danica was produced by Royal Copenhagen.

It's more than 200 years old, it's still in production.

Pieces in this collection can go upwards of $25,000 per piece.

- My plates that I eat off (plate shatters) at home came from Goodwill and I paid 50 cents a piece for 'em.

(TV static) (toaster pops) (attendees laughing) - Sometimes we get requests for patterns that might have been shown on a TV show, such as the "I Love Lucy" show.

That pattern that you would see, was the Franciscan Ivy pattern and some of you may be familiar, being here in North Carolina, "The Andy Griffin Show."

The pattern that was shown in Aunt Bee's dining room is the Blue Willow pattern by Johnson Brothers.

(ceremonious music) - Here we have a play setting of the Johnson Administration, White House China Collection.

Lady Bird herself worked with Tiffany's in the Castleton company to create this beautiful setting.

(gentle music) - A lot of it, it's very sentimental.

You know, that belonged to my mother or my grandmother or I got that 40 years ago and I still think it's the prettiest pattern ever made and I can't, they don't make it anymore and it brings back memories.

(gentle instrumental music) - We had inherited some China and we didn't have the complete set, so we came here and pretty much finished out the set of China and it was my husband's mother's and I think she got it, I think from her mother and it was Haviland pattern, Bird of Paradise, makes me think of my husband's mother and how precious she was.

- [Bob] That blue's my favorite color.

I'm happy doing it.

We make a lot of customers happy and we are really involved in the community.

- We've worked with Habitat for Humanity here in the local Greensboro area for years.

We launched an onsite clothing charity here and we provide clothing to individuals who are in need, no charge, no questions asked.

Last year we supplied more than 55,000 individual pieces of clothing.

- I'm proud of several things.

I'm proud of our integrity as a business, our reputation for providing customer service.

(customers laughing) - Y'all have a great day.

- Our dedication to our employees and our involvement in the community are things that I find important and that I'm proud of and our diversity here at work.

- Thanks so much Russ.

I think I saw my China pattern there.

Well Replacements Limited has an active social media community, customers like to post pictures of their plate settings and share memories attached to the plates design.

You can find more information on our website at wtvi.org.

Finally tonight, what comes to mind when you think of your favorite things from the past?

Is it a sporting event or a concert?

For many people, these outings often come with paraphernalia.

There's a store making its mark by eliciting that feeling with its new brand Nostalgia Wear, "Carolina Impacts," Bea Thompson and Videographer Max Arnall take us to Glory Days Apparel.

(light swooshes) - [Bea] It's the kind of turnout any business owner would be proud to see in their store, as people look at and buy merchandise, the average onlooker would think that the owner of this clothing store has it made, but he will tell you, making the jump from the field of finance to the ownership of a brick and mortar store was one of survival.

- A big part of the switch for me in trying something with Glory Days was, just trying to be happy and fulfilled in what I was doing.

- [Bea] JD Harris moved to Charlotte from Ohio in 2005 when a college friend told him to head south.

After a decade in finance, he made the change in 2016 to an online store with something he believed in, a line of clothing that touched on nostalgia wear.

- I have shirts in the back of my closet, maybe it's like a concert or a sporting event that even I don't wear 'em now, I still hang onto 'em.

You know, there's a memory attached to it and that's really what I wanna create for our brand and for our fans so that they kind of have a memory and a piece of clothing that they get to have for Charlotte.

- [Bea] And thus began Glory Days.

Designed to give people in the area a sense of not only nostalgia, but belonging.

Yet it wasn't easy getting to this point, - We really started probably the first three years, mostly doing popups around town.

That's, I would, any opportunity I got, if someone's like, yeah, you can come out to our brewery, I took it so, and you know, every opportunity that someone would would give me, I'd do it, just to get out there, try to get exposure for our brand.

- [Bea] With opportunities for his brand to be seen, it meant coming up with a variety of looks that would appeal, which raises the question, how to come up with designs that customers want.

- There's plenty where I think it's gonna work and then it falls flat, so I don't always have the the recipe, but sometimes you just get a feeling, you know, just talking to fans or you know, I'll talk to my staff, I'm like, "what do you guys think about this one?"

So sometimes it's just like kind of a reaction.

- [Bea] Such was the case for a very specific design.

They called it the Misfit Queen, yet it was created to pay homage to the history of Queen Charlotte.

- Anytime we go into design, you know, we really wanna make sure, you know, we're putting all the right attention to the details.

So especially you know, Queen Charlotte looking back at, you know, actual, you know, historical photos and be like, hey, how can we accurately, you know, represent her in her light?

And that was part of making sure that we did the braids with the hair and everything, giving that look.

(chilled music) - [Bea] In other designs, he points out the nostalgia trend is throwbacks that to many was not so long ago.

- You'll see through a lot of our designs, were very kind of nostalgic based.

Like the nineties is kind of back now as far as the looks and a lot of times someone likes very minimalist or simple and someone wants kind of loud and crazy.

So we just try to have kind of a little bit of everything for people.

(chilled music) (upbeat music) - [Bea] And for businesses in a new millennium, getting the word out is a whole new type of advertising at low cost.

- It's very different, you know, having to use Instagram and TikTok and all these social media tools, which is great in a sense where, you know, we can reach more people that way and you know, a lot of times we'll hear our customers, they'll come in and say, yeah, I saw your TikTok video, or I saw this or that and that's how they really find out about it or how word gets around.

- [Bea] One of the most successful parts of Glory Days is what they call their icon series.

- I'd say kind of next big goal is to just expand our partnerships, our collaborations, our Glory Days icons line's been really successful and that's a lot of fun to get to work with, you know, local athletes and you know, people like that and give back to their charities as well.

- [Bea] Among those icons, with their partnership paraphernalia on the wall, Jonathan Stewart, Greg Olson, Mike Tolbert.

Muggsy Bogues and now Luke Kuechly.

So what words from an entrepreneur who went from finance to pop-up shops, to a brick and mortar business?

- It's gonna be tough.

You know, early on you're gonna have a lot of nos.

You're gonna have a lot of, you know, unanswered emails and doors closed on you and to me that, it's taking nos and looking at those opportunities as, you know, not just getting down on yourself, you being like, okay, here's an opportunity to do better or work harder on something.

- [Bea] And because he followed his own advice, he can now look at his own glory days and see that success did not pass him by.

For "Carolina Impact," I'm Bea Thompson.

- Thank you.

Bea.

If you have an interesting story idea like this one, email us the details to stories@wtvi.org.

Well, that's all the time we have this evening.

Thanks so much for joining us.

We always appreciate your time and look forward to seeing you back here again next time on "Carolina Impact."

Goodnight my friends.

(bright music) (logo swooshes) - [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.