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

(bright music) - Just ahead on "Carolina Impact."

From food to major home repairs, see how a Charlotte group helps seniors in need.

Plus two local friends use their violin shop to spread their love of music.

And it's no longer just a backyard sport.

It's a college scholarship opportunity.

We'll take you to Rock Hill to learn more.

"Carolina Impact" starts right now.

(upbeat music) (air whooshing) Good evening, thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Amy Burkett.

It's been five years since one Charlotte woman decided it was time to be a voice for seniors living on the west side.

After seeing them face issues like unaffordable housing, food insecurity, and gentrification, she created a nonprofit to help protect them.

"Carolina Impact"s Dara Khaalid and videographer Max Arnall show us how.

(nails thudding) - [Dara] Take a listen to that.

It may sound like regular old construction, a roof repair just like any other.

- Looking good, guys!

- [Dara] But Marguerite Dargan hears it as the sweet sound of relief.

- Feel like I've been to Disney World already again.

- [Dara] It's been a tough 12 months for her.

- My husband was diagnosed with cancer last year.

Tomorrow be a whole year.

- [Dara] Marguerite says taking care of her sick husband and dealing with the leaky roof they couldn't afford to get fixed made a bad situation worse.

- We've just been going through so much to be senior citizen and didn't know where to go for funds to help us.

And everywhere that we went, they closed the doors on us.

- [Dara] The Charlotte nonprofit For The Struggle saved the day getting the Dargans a free roof.

- Y'all look godsend, I mean, there's just so many seniors.

You gonna have people ringing your phone.

- Let 'em ring, that's what we're here for.

- [Dara] Since 2020, the organization's Elder Response Initiative has done major repairs like HVAC systems, plumbing, and insulation at over 80 homes.

- Oftentimes our senior citizen population is forgotten.

And so it's so important to me to make sure they are taken care of, that they have the basic necessities.

And as you can see, you know, we're very serious about getting in, getting the work done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

- [Dara] Growing up, Alicia had a passion for empowering others.

In high school and college, she started education programs that got failing middle schoolers ready for high school, at the same time, it prepared her.

- The reason I became an attorney, a civil rights attorney in particular, was to be a voice for people and to fight for people who couldn't otherwise fight for themselves.

And so that idea really translates into the work that we're doing through the nonprofit as well.

- [Dara] Some of that work happens right here in her organization's West Charlotte Kitchen, where staff cook homemade meals for seniors in this historically black neighborhood.

- The areas that we serve are primarily considered food deserts, and so they're usually, our seniors are usually in a position where they don't have access to fresh vegetables or not easy access to fresh vegetables.

We want to fill in that gap.

- [Dara] According to Mecklenburg County Public Health, nearly 12% of homes in the county are food insecure.

You'll find Antwan Chambers here twice a week serving over 400 people.

- It just feels so, it feels very meaningful to like walk up to their doors and know that like at least for tonight, you don't have to think about where your meal's gonna come from.

You don't have to stand up in your kitchen for hours.

You have a meal, and you could just take the night off and relax.

- [Dara] You won't find him relaxing.

On cooking days, they start early in the morning, and it takes about five hours.

- When I'm preparing these meals, I'm thinking about like, if my grandma was to receive this plate, and I would want to give my grandmother my best work, 'cause again, she taught me so much of what I know.

I wouldn't want her to feel disappointed or like, what is this?

So I make sure not to do that for them too.

- [Dara] From the kitchen to the doorstep, intern Gabriel Hosey gets to see the impact.

- And it just means so much to me, 'cause I know that my grandparents or my family, once they get older, they'll have someone to help them out here.

- [Dara] We've seen the group repair homes, deliver food to homes, but they also want to help the elderly keep their hopes.

- There is a very large senior citizen population on this corridor and that folks are legitimately afraid of being displaced because of the rapid growth in gentrification that's happening in Charlotte.

- [Dara] Alicia and her team have seen a lot of alarming tactics.

- Predatory investors (laughs) knocking on doors with suitcases with cash in it.

You know, trying to convince senior citizens to sell their homes, sending notifications in the mail like final notice, you know, to sell your home and different things like that.

- [Dara] Here's how For The Struggle fights back.

It offers free estate planning and legal representation for property-related issues.

Alicia's experience as an attorney really comes in handy.

- We all wanna get, you know, to their age, and it's also my hope that there'll be someone there to look out for me as well and my family members and my loved ones.

And so that's what keeps us going.

- [Dara] Going to help people like Marguerite for generations.

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

- Thank you so much, Dara.

The nonprofit also helps seniors apply for property tax relief.

Alicia tells us last year, the organization saved over 50 people more than $34,000 in tax bills.

Next, we head to a bakery where delicious meets whimsy in the heart of Charlotte.

It's known not only for its croissants and macaroons, but also for its quirky decor.

Videographers Marcellus Jones and Doug Stacker take us behind the curtain of Amelie's French Bakery & Cafe.

(lively music) - I would describe Amelie's as very unique.

One of the biggest things that I always hear about, aside from our amazing pastries is how people speak of the decor and how, you know, beautiful and whimsical and amazing everything is.

- [Customer] It's inspiring, it's a wonderful ambience.

It just has a artistic spirit.

- After years of repurposing items, I've developed a really keen eye for what will work and what won't work.

I am part owner and designer for Amelie's French Bakery.

16, probably 17 years ago, the original owner saw some of my work in Julia's Coffee Shop, which is in Habitat for Humanity Restore, and she asked who had done the design, and they connected her with me.

As we brought in a little more money, the decor, of course, improved a little bit, and things just evolved from there.

(lively music) These are macarons that I use in various projects for my decor.

I make 'em out of this, which is used to seal windows with.

As an artist, I'm trained to see things not as they are, but what they could be.

And that is why I have this unrelenting creative drive to transform things and not leave things as they are.

- I don't think as many people would come to Amelie's if we didn't have the decor that we do, the photo ops, and just experiencing each of the different bakeries.

So all the bakeries have something a little different inside versus it's a different chandelier or a different mosaic table that Brenda has made.

We have like upside down tree and other places have like raining macarons with umbrellas.

So everyone is just a little bit different.

I think that's what pulls our customers in.

(lively music) - Well obviously, you could feel the French Paris ambiance, but it has a very unique dream-like aesthetic.

So it's really draws you in to really look at different things, and it's really cool.

- I like to think that when you walk into Amelie's, each location, there is a story, and the story can be what your mind conjures up.

You know what it inspires in you and what you can relate to.

I like to say it's Allison Wonderland meets Marie Antoinette.

- [Announcer] Step into an exciting, colorful, wonderfully new world.

There are wonderful tunes for your heart.

(playful music) - So I'd say a lot of my inspiration comes from just everyday life and the things I see every day and I try to, I can look at the same thing every day for years and then suddenly see it differently the next day.

I just wanna be free.

I don't wanna have anybody else's opinion in my mind about what something should look like or what the rules are.

I just flow, and that is the advice that I would give to anyone that aspires to create their own niche in art.

(lively music) - Amelie's opened its doors in 2008 with just one location in NoDa.

Today they have five locations, four in Charlotte and one in Rock Hill.

Well, music often brings people together.

For two Charlotte business partners, music is their shared language and the bedrock of their 18-year friendship.

Together, they own the violin shop in Elizabeth.

Now where customers quickly become family, producer Russ Hunsinger takes us on a visit.

(lively music) - We feel like the shop has our personality.

The warmth of the shop, and just the family atmosphere.

And we'll often say that whenever a customer comes in and buys something from us or they'll rent something, we'll say, "Well, welcome to the family."

David is awesome.

We always call him the Tom Hanks of the violin world.

Just his demeanor, and he's just real gentle, real easygoing.

He definitely takes care of the accounts and the bookends.

(classical string music) - Glen Alexander is my business partner and who co-owns the shop with me, he's an amazing musician and his level of his creativity and talent, there's not many around that can touch that.

What the shop does, it's retail sales of string instruments and accessories.

Rentals, we rent violin, viola, and cello.

And then the repair and restoration.

(classical string music) We've had such an age range of customers all through the years, and we'll get people who are just retiring and saying they want to take up an instrument, and you know, we can connect them with a teacher, and they take off and run with it.

(classical string music) - It challenges me and enriches me, and I so appreciate how difficult it is to learn a string instrument.

And it is not a instant gratification.

You really have to put in a lot of patience and time and praise yourself for all the little progress that you make, so to not give up.

- Do that again, that's it.

It's very rare that you find a place that so many different types of people wanna come to, but we all have one common interest, and that's music in some way, shape or form.

- With the schools now not teaching orchestra and band instruments, so when you need somewhere to go, this is very valuable.

- I have students now growing into much more expensive violins, and one of the first places without fail that I send them to look, as they're exploring more and more expensive violins and expanding their own growth as violinists, I send them to the violin shop.

- I'm just gonna make sure that this works for you.

Put your neck there.

We love just being a part of the community, and, you know, serving in whatever capacities we can.

A number of summers, we've loaned instruments to the summer Suzuki violin camps, and we're 15 or 20 tiny little violins for a bunch of pre-twinklers, as they call the early, early Suzuki players.

- We also cater to Charlotte Mecklenburg school system where we'll do a lot of their repair work.

(lively string music) - The Folk Society, they use our studio room in the back, they have an old time jam.

1, 2, 3, 4.

But we've had little workshops here.

We did a banjo workshop one time.

We've had people that have done songwriting workshops here, theory workshops, so it's a great hub for that.

- There are not too many music shops like this that I'm aware of in the city of Charlotte.

These are the kinds of things that enrichen the fabric of everybody's lives.

You know, we as a city need musicians, we need artists, we need people who create.

That's what they do here.

(lively string music) - We're just super, super grateful every day.

Glen and I say, man, I don't ever take this for granted because it's like, it's just a huge blessing.

It's fun to come to work.

So we're just really thankful for the opportunity to serve the strings community.

And you know, make purchasing these instruments not an intimidating thing, but make it just a fun experience.

(lively string outro music) - This little tidbit might surprise you.

Did you know violin bows cost anywhere between $5,000 and $100,000?

Well, it's likely no surprise that the world's most popular sport in terms of viewership is soccer.

Here in the US, it's football.

Here's a little twist.

Do you know what the most played sport in America currently is?

"Carolina Impact"s Jason Terzis joins us with the answer.

- Well, for decades the most played sport in America was bowling.

The local lanes always packed with tournaments, leagues and birthday parties and weekend fun.

But these days it's a sport that began on Midwestern farmland because that's where corn is grown.

In the last 15 to 20 years, the popularity of cornhole has spread like wildfire because unlike bowling, it can be played pretty much anywhere, anytime.

Backyard barbecues, tailgates, beaches, campgrounds, even at bars and pubs.

Locally, there's one city though that is fast becoming America's cornhole mecca.

(lively music) The gym is filled with people, lots of them.

The sight of arms swinging and the sounds of corn filled sacks smacking into the boards.

- I couldn't be more stoked.

- [Jason] It's cornhole, but not your fun football tailgate or backyard barbecue party variety.

This is for real.

- This is Worlds.

This is by far the biggest tournament of the year.

Every cornhole player looks forward to Worlds and playing in it.

If you're gonna win anything this year, Worlds is the one you want.

- [Jason] The American Cornhole League World Championships take place annually at the Rock Hill Sports & Events Center, a one-time textile mill converted into the epicenter of cornhole.

- The city of Rock Hill has done an amazing job in bringing in sports to become what they're known as competition lives here in Rock Hill.

- [Jason] Thousands of players of all ages come here each year for Worlds, and these guys and gals are just flat out good.

So good, the competition is televised on ESPN.

- [Announcer] He knows, it goes up top and hits it!

What a shot, Mike Clever!

- What the ACL has done is taking it to another level and grew the sport to what it is.

It's just crazy that where we're at now, - The level of focus, the level of like skill, strategy, all that it takes to get to this level, is beyond what a lot of people think.

- [Jason] Among this year's competitors were the country's first two collegiate scholarship cornhole players.

Yeah, you heard right, scholarship cornhole players, Winthrop University's, Jaxson Remmick and Gavin Hamann.

- Before I signed, I did not even think this was a possibility.

- It's nothing I could've ever even guessed was gonna happen.

- But it is groundbreaking, it is going to be history, first ever D1 school to offer scholarships for cornhole.

- We're pioneers, and we're grateful to be pioneers.

- [Jason] The guys are from the same small town in Colorado and each grew up around the game.

- When I first tossed was probably two years old (laughs).

We went camping with my parents a lot, and I was two years old crawling on the boards, doing whatever a baby would do with all the bags.

- I first threw a set of bags when I was about 8 or 10 at just like a cool family reunion at a park.

I have a huge family, and they always love playing backyard games, whether that's bocce ball or cornhole.

- [Jason] Gavin and Jaxson's High School didn't have a cornhole team.

- Not a lot of the high schools do.

- [Jason] So they started one.

- The high school didn't really even know about it.

We just had to represent our high school for the national.

So we put their logo on our jersey.

We talked to the principal, and he's like, "Yeah, that's okay.

Well, you know, we'll fund the jerseys for you."

- Like we were having fun with it.

It was something we enjoyed, and we saw as we were getting better, there was more money opportunity, and I would say what kind of flipped that switch was three years ago when we won the high school national championship.

Right from there we got some sponsors, and then it just kept escalating from there and on.

- [Jason] Their high school success led newly appointed Winthrop University coach Dusty Thompson to recruit them, selling Jaxson and Gavin on a vision.

- At the time we were just kind of thinking, we don't want to go to college to play cornhole.

- He flew us out to Winthrop, gave us a tour, kind of told us how he would build the program around us.

- After Dusty gave us this, big D1 school, he flew us out here.

Him and his family are awesome people, and he kind of made our choice for us.

- I'm looking at building more of a family than I am a team, and I've let him know that up front that the main goal for me is their education, not cornhole.

Cornhole is gonna come.

- Dusty is one of those coaches that has passion, really loves the game, enjoys what he does, and he bleeds cornhole.

- [Jason] When signing day at their high school arrived, it was Gavin and Jaxson getting all the local media attention and not the kids signing to play the more traditional sports.

- There's two news channels there to cover it all, and they're only there for the cornhole.

They're not there for anything else, so it's really cool.

At first it was kind of like, what the heck's going on?

But then we end up on every national news channel you can think of.

- Two Colorado high school seniors have a passion for the game of cornhole.

- [Jason] From Good Morning America to CBS Saturday Morning.

- With the head-scratching news of college scholarships to play cornhole being bestowed on a pair of Colorado teens.

- [Jason] News of the cornhole college scholarships at Winthrop went national.

- The publicity we've already gotten from it is crazy.

All the news stations we've been on, national television, it's just a huge, huge thing that I could've never guessed.

- [Jason] And in turn gave the university a lot of exposure.

- It's great for Winthrop University, the national publicity that we've gotten, the calls that you get from somebody you hadn't heard from in 20 years and say, "Hey, Winthrop's got a cornhole team.

You know, what's that about?"

- Gavin and Jaxson have really opened up the flood doors with kids wanting to come to Winthrop.

- [Jason] Tying things all together, the Rock Hill Sports & Event Center, which serves the dual purpose as home of the American Cornhole League offices, as well as Winthrop's team.

- This facility right here, this will be where we practice, this will be where we hold our meets with other colleges.

So it just, everything goes hand in hand with, we're lucky to have this in our back pocket.

- Oh, it's sweet, and knowing that this is like our, gonna be like our new home, like base, oh, it's awesome.

- It's just a cool, such a cool place, honestly.

- Okay, Jason, what else do we need to know about this Winthrop team?

- It really, it's just fun, what they're doing.

It's, you know, so those scholarships for now are not full rides.

They're partial scholarships, which are being supplemented by donors and sponsors.

There's currently 12 players on the team, but they're hoping to get that number up to 20 for next year.

They'd also love to add a women's team and would love to see more area high schools field teams in the club level to continue to grow the sport, and just, you know, it's a fun sport with the tailgates, the beaches and the barbecues, and they're really trying to make it fun and competitive now.

- I think it's pretty amazing that there are even scholarships for cornhole.

I mean, I was amazed when I saw your story.

- Yeah, it's a really cool thing what they're doing.

- Thanks for helping us learn about those hidden treasures throughout our area.

- Mm-hmm.

- Well, before we head out this evening, I wanna say thank you to the amazing students from Steel Creek Elementary School who were absolutely extraordinary, and they were guests in our audience today while we recorded this show.

They were so quiet, I was so very impressed, and we're glad that they came to join us.

I'm also glad that you tuned in this evening.

Thanks so much for your time.

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

Goodnight, my friends.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

(bright music)