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Treading the waves Farragut student finds a lifeline By Lorraine Furtner Once drowning in despair, 18-year-old high school senior and business owner Thomas Truett found a lifeline tethered to work and faith. Truett is an award-winning business student and DECA club member with a great smile and firm handshake, an “all around” kind of guy. He snow skis, volunteers with his church and the Red Cross, and is part of Farragut High School’s Student Government Association. Guidance counselor Susan Bolinger will tell you that he’s a semifinalist for the NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) Young Entrepreneur Awards for a renewable scholarship ranging from $1,000 to $10,000. Truett is eligible for the award because he started his own jet ski rental company. He secured $8,000 in investments for start-up and is projected to gross $20,000 his first season, which begins May 1. He also does webpage design on the side. Truett’s dream is to do international business and settle down with a wife and family. Just last summer he was “going under.”
Thomas Truett, Farragut High School senior and owner of Volunteer Jet Ski Rentals, stands where his signage will go when he opens for business May 1, at Volunteer Landing Marina in downtown Knoxville. Photo by L. Furtner Like many teens, Truett has struggled with problems at home that were complicated by financial strain. His father’s career has been unstable, and his mother works four jobs teaching and counseling, putting two older siblings through college. Matters got worse last year when a relationship that began in the 9th grade ended. “It was the worst summer of my life. I was devastated,” said Truett. Still, Truett accompanied his ex-girlfriend’s father, his friend and business mentor Constantinos Constantinou, to Cyprus as planned. Constantinou, a success-
ful business owner, showed Truett how he had begun in Cyprus as a poor refugee. “It was a life-changing moment of inspiration to see that success can arise from pain and sorrow,” Truett said. After returning, another friend and mentor, Clarence McDowell, helped alter the course of Truett’s life. McDowell is a business owner – Palace Liquor Store and Lonsdale Market and Deli – with strong Christian beliefs. Truett said he owes “a lot” to McDowell: “He helped me overcome my hardships (and) became a spiri-
tual leader, counselor, and a business mentor and investor to me.” Truett said he had grown up in a religious environment at the Episcopalian Church of the Good Samaritan, but it didn’t become real until his life was in turmoil. The pain was worth it, he said, because he would never have learned to trust in Christ and may not have pursued opening a business. In Knoxville, there are thousands of high school students like Truett who may be treading emotional waves. Truett agreed to Thomas Truett in Cyprus with long share both sides of his story, toss- time friend and business mentor ing his own lifeline out to someone Constantinos Constantinou. Photo submitted who might need it.
Ladies of Charity take good works to new headquarters By Anne Hart Erika Fuhr is one of those remarkable people who can always find something good in even the worst of situations. But that admirable characteristic has been tested mightily over the last year or so. Fuhr has been the major force – they call her “the building guru” – behind the remodeling of a 25 ,000 - squa re foot building soon to be the new home of the Ladies of Charity. It will allow the organization to move its operations from cramped, out-dated headquarters in Erika Fuhr two different locations to the new site and eventually expand its charitable programs. After months of effort, work on the new headquarters – the former Royal Beauty Supply building on Baxter Avenue – was nearing completion when a five inch highpressure water pipe froze and burst overnight in January 2010, flooding the entire building. “Everything was ruined,” Fuhr
“Those who love the poor during life will have nothing to fear at the hour of their death.” – St. Vincent de Paul says. “All the ceilings had to be ripped out to the rafters, the walls taken back to the studs, all the flooring pulled up. We lost the furnace, the electrical, everything. It was a nightmare. It cost us $80,000 just to get the water out, but we got right back to work the very next day.” So what good could she possibly find in all that? “We learned a lot was wrong with the building that we hadn’t known about. Now we have been able to take care of those things. It will save us money over the long run.” For example, there were large holes in the walls along roof lines that would have resulted in enormous heating and cooling bills. The building has many large windows, none of which was double-paned or insulated. Much of the structure is concrete block, and the chinking
was crumbling between the blocks. But now, everything that was old and outdated and worn out and not working the way it should has been replaced. “We now have a solid, tight building,” Fuhr says. “It’s almost a new building.” Help has come from many sources. A $33,500 grant from the Timken Foundation, an Ohio manufacturing firm with a facility in Mascot, replaced the large windows with new double-paned ones. A large part of the cost of the building was made possible by a bequest from a former member. In her will, Helen Marx left the Ladies of Charity $384,000. Funding sources for the organization include the United Way, private gifts, donations from the churches and the Angel Tree program. A volunteer writes grants applications. Paid staff is the equivalent of 3 1/2 fulltime positions, and the remaining work is performed by more than 100 volunteers who donated about 25,000 hours last year. Ladies of Charity operates both a thrift shop, where furniture, clothing and other items
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are available, and a food pantry, where supplies to prepare more than 3,000 meals a week are provided. In addition, vouchers are available for kerosene for heating in the wintertime, and layettes for newborns are provided to indigent women. Some 33,000 individuals received services from the charity last year. Founded in France in 1617 under the direction of St. Vincent de Paul, Ladies of Charity is the oldest lay organization in the Catholic Church. The local organization was founded in 1942 by the wom-
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The new Ladies of Charity headquarters on Baxter Avenue. Photos by Ruth White
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en of Holy Ghost and Immaculate Conception churches and has long played an active role in helping primarily the working poor. As Fuhr puts it: “Many people hit rough spots in life, and our goal is to get them through that.” The doors to the new facility will open to the public on March 21.There will be a special mass at Holy Ghost Church at 10 a.m. March 18, and afterwards Bishop Richard Stika will cut the ribbon at the new facility. It will be dedicated to Mother Teresa.