'FEP Success Story' Speaks At Empty Bowl Dinner In Moorestown

MOORESTOWN, NJ — A total of 48 people attended the Friends Enrichment Program of Moorestown Meeting’s (FEP) annual Empty Bowl Dinner fundraiser, FEP announced on Monday. Among those in attendance were FEP kids and their parents, FEP volunteers, guest speaker Paul Carson, Moorestown Mayor Stacey Jordan, and Moorestown Council members Victoria Napolitano and Lisa Petriello.

Carson, 34, is a former FEP kid who spent years of his adolescence in a MEND affordable apartment with his mother and three younger siblings. Directing his remarks to the young people in the audience, he reminisced about a critical time of his life when he resisted going to school and was at risk of becoming a high dropout.

He posed the question: “What would have happened if I had had no guidance in my life?” He credited FEP for pushing him back in the direction of attending school. FEP worked with him one-on-one persistently, he said.

Now, Carson — who is described as FEP as a "success story" — is happily married and has two children. For the past 14 years, he has been serving in the Air Force and has seen combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently stationed in New Jersey, he is enrolled at Wilmington University, where he is pursuing a bachelor’s degree. He expects to graduate this year.

In his spare time, he gives back to the community by mentoring youths in Burlington County. He urged kids to ward off bad influences, listen to the people who have their best interest at heart and “look around them and find someone they might be able to help.”

For FEP children and their parents, the dinner was also an opportunity to meet members of their local government and to talk with them about their interests and about issues that matter to them as residents of the community.

FEP is a hands-on project run by volunteers. Its mission is to reach out to financially disadvantaged Moorestown children with a message of love and inclusion. It also runs a program of Sunday afternoon activities and scholarships for participants to attend summer camp, enroll in art classes or sports clinics, take music lessons, or participate in other age-appropriate, life-enhancing programs at no cost to their parents.

For more information, call Monique Begg at 856-235-3963.

The attached images were provided by FEP