FOR THE DAILY SOUTHERNER
Mildred Moore of Scotland Neck has received the National Child Labor Committee’s prestigious Lewis Hine Award for Service to Children and Youth.
Named for the acclaimed photographer who documented early 20th century exploitation of child labor, the Lewis Hine Awards for Service to Children and Youth are bestowed annually to 10 relatively unknown men and women for their efforts on behalf of the health, education and welfare of children and youth, particularly those at risk.
The Lewis Hine Awards are given to unheralded professionals and volunteers who devote extraordinary time and energy to helping children and youth. The recipients, who come from many walks of life and from across the United States, are selected by a panel of distinguished judges from nominations submitted by elected officials and community leaders.
Moore is the director of the Scotland Neck Recreation Center. Now a senior citizen, she returned to her birthplace, where she became a leader in the community and also fulfilled her dream of opening a safe haven for children to study and provide pathways out of poverty.
She mobilized children and adults to help her clean up an abandoned building that was littered with trash and debris. In 1996 she opened the Scotland Neck Recreation Center where children can come to use computers, get help with homework, do arts and crafts and play games.
Moore was born in the tiny rural town of Scotland Neck 70 years ago, back when many black families in the area still sharecropped. As a child, she often had to stay home on school days to help – so it’s not surprising that when she and her husband married, they moved away to Washington D.C. to raise their family and make a better life.
Yet when her husband expressed the desire to retire and come home, she agreed. For a while she worked as relief postmaster in the nearby town of Tillery, but she had a larger dream: If she could get hold of a building, she would make it into a neighborhood center like the one she’d volunteered at in Washington – a place for children to come after school and learn arts and crafts and get help with their schoolwork and whatever else they needed to grow up safe and smart.
“I knew these children needed help,” she said. “Because it is still a poor area. They just don’t have any activity here – nothing to do but get in trouble. And I didn’t want that for them.”
Already a leader in the community, serving on many municipal committees and boards, Moore organized an initial search for a location. Without financing the effort faltered; yet she herself would not give up. She settled on an abandoned water filtration building owned by the town. The yard was full of trash, the building full of debris, yet all this could be cleaned up. The town gave her permission to try.
She found Boy Scouts to help, persuaded people with trucks to pick up the loads of debris. She worked so hard, she remembers, “People thought I was crazy.”
But the more she got done, the more others saw her vision and contributed.
In 1996, the Scotland Neck Recreation Center opened its doors. Today, 35 to 40 children come each day to study, work on computers, play games, or do arts and crafts. Young parents who once came to the center as kids now bring their own children. She is glad for it all – yet she would have done it no matter what.
“I had my rough days, but I never complained,” she said. “Nobody asked me to do what I was doing. It was my dream to try and make a difference in somebody else’s life. And when I have even one adult now say ‘Thank you,’ I feel like my work was not in vain.”
Moore also received $1,000 and a trip to the awards ceremony in New York City.
