Meeting new people is one of my favorite parts of this job of running a website. Many times I only meet these women virtually, but they still make an impact on me in ways I never would have thought possible!
I hope our Main Street Moms on the Move features are able to affect you in some of the same ways. We love to introduce you to women in the Triad who are doing great things. Today, I introduce you to Buffie, Julia, and Andrea …
Buffie Longmire Avital
Buffie who has her PhD in applied developmental psychology is currently an assistant professor in the psychology department at Elon University. She and her family, which includes husband Nadav, a fifth grade teacher at Canterbury School, and son Micah (4), moved to Greensboro three years ago. The family’s newest member, Noam was born just 7 months ago.
One of Buffie’s primary foci at Elon is to help students learn how scientific research can be a tool for social change. Community service and social justice work has always been a part of Buffie’s career. Prior to moving to the Triad, Buffie worked for several non-profits in NYC that focused on eliminating health inequities, specifically the rising number of HIV infections among adolescents and young adults of color. These experiences still continue to influence Buffie’s work. Since joining the faculty at Elon, she has presented several times and published a number of articles on her research about why people engage in risky health behaviors. Recently Buffie expanded her focus to include the stress experiences of low-income adolescents who planned on being the first in their family to attend college. For the past two years Buffie has worked with a college access program to help these students develop stress reduction techniques during once a month Saturday sessions.
“Working with these inspiring students has also challenged me to reflect on how I handle stress and balance all the things I do,” said the busy mom of two. One of the ways she does this is by seeking out other colleagues with young children for play-dates and mom-dates. When the race for tenure has finished, the first thing Buffie plans on doing is learning Hebrew. Not only is she the only female in the house but she is also the only non-Hebrew speaker as well. Hopefully by then her two boys will serve as her teacher.
Julia Chandler
Born and raised in Winston-Salem, Julia is proud to call Winston-Salem home again. Julia has two children, Beau age 10, and Nell, 8. Both attend Whitaker Elementary School.
Julia’s passion in life has always been food. She explains, “It’s just how I was born. My business, Julia’s Take Away Gourmet & Catering, is a specialty foods & catering company, and is so much yummy fun.” Julia operates in a fully inspected & licensed catering kitchen in Winston-Salem. On Wednesdays, customers can choose delivery or pick up from a weekly dinner menu offered to go. In addition, she does a lot of catering and specialty orders, and events. One of her favorite things about the business is her blog. It is a really fun way for her to share ideas, recipes and thoughts about food and life. Julia considers herself very luck to call her passion her career. The tag line of her blog is “Enjoy the best of food and life”. Julia claims, “Too often we get bogged down with busy schedules, and I try to remind myself, & others, we simply need to sometimes slow down with good food shared with the ones we love.”
Outside of the kitchen, Julia spends time volunteering for school and organizations in our community, such as Ronald McDonald House and Lab Rescue of NC (LRNC). LRNC is such an important part of her weekly life, being a devoted animal and dog lover, and while sometimes juggling work, family and volunteering is challenging, she claims it is more than worth it. Julia owns three labs, two of which are rescues, and she gets so much joy out of helping someone else find their own amazing buddy.
You can see more about Julia’s Take Away Gourmet & Catering at http://juliastakeawaygourmet.wordpress.com/, or email bluemoose@triad.rr.com for information.
Andrea Everhart
Andrea Everhart is a mom of three rambunctious girls (ages 5, 8 & 10). She is the wife of Jeff Everhart who recently received Teacher of the Year at North Davidson High School. As soon as their first daughter was born (and about the same time the economy’s bottom dropped out), they decided that she would transition from her video production career to be a stay-at-home mom while working on her passion, writing. Quickly, they discovered that a passion doesn’t pay the bills on a teacher’s salary. Fortune was on their side when Lowes Foods took her on to be part of their team of Smart Shoppers who reach out to the community with tips, classes, blogs and local events. (Check out her blog here!)
Via this new endeavor, she can now work from home, be room mom, write articles, coupon like a maniac and share her journey with her readers. On top of that, she continues to work on several books, has co-written screenplays with her father that are in development and publishes articles on saving money. She has also set up a Facebook page, Resourceful Living, dedicated to tips on deals.
A goal that has become very dear to her is helping the community find ways to survive on a budget and teach her kids that we must always share good fortunes that come our way. They foster animals on a regular basis, have delivered milk to the Salvation Army (when she discovered that some stores were simply dumping near expiration gallons), volunteered with the Diaper Bank and she has taught classes with Smart Start to guide young mothers on saving money.
She is always looking for new ways to help folks survive on a budget and manage their finances. If any of you have ideas on how we can help each other, please feel free to comment. We’re all in this together. So true that it takes a village to get through it!
*If you would like to nominate a local mother for this series of blogs, email Rachel@triadmomsonmain.com!
