Sheila Parker is a matriarch in the making. The cluster of co-workers, close friends and family wearing pistachio green T-shirts and surrounding Parker as she talked in Cary’s The Village Deli have clearly rallied to her cause.

Parker’s story is one of triumph through tragedy, of taking a bitter lemon and making lemon bars. Just two years ago, Parker was raped in her own home in Morrisville. Instead of retreating, she decided to reach out to her community and make a difference.

Her cause quickly became clear. Parker’s son had a friend who had been in foster care, but upon turning 18, he had nowhere to live. Parker took him in, and he has been living at their home for a year.

She established The Pauline Frazier Foundation to change the lives of local foster children who age out of the system. It’s named for Parker’s grandmother, Pauline Frazier, who passed away in 1997. Frazier was a matriarch who nursed the people of her small town in Tennessee. In the days when few women had careers, Frazier took a nursing correspondence course, nursing premature babies back to health and looking in on those who needed extra care.

“If someone needed a dollar and asked her for it, she would give it to them,” Parker said.

Left to their own devices, most former foster children are not so lucky.

Lacking a permanent family or home, they are not prepared for their immediate independence, Parker said.

“Many [foster care children] end up homeless or in jail,” said Parker. “The check ends at 18, and they are out of the system.”

Parker’s foundation wants to help with the whole package: providing a home environment, completing educational goals and finding jobs to ensure self-sufficiency.

Parker’s heart went out to her son’s friend, who had been a crack baby and whose father had committed suicide. Although Parker had faced tragedy herself, she has always had a strong family support system that she wants to extend to foster children over 18. “I just couldn’t imagine not having anywhere [to live], not having anywhere to go for Thanksgiving or Christmas,” she said.

Parker said her son’s friend had never had a birthday gift and had never decorated a Christmas tree. “He told me, ‘I never thought about it because I never thought I would get it.’”

While working a day job at IBM and moonlighting at Trader Joe’s, Parker has begun to fit the pieces together. Her foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), is working with Builders of Hope, a local organization that helps secure homes for families in need of affordable housing, and Capital Area Workforce Development, which helps former foster children find jobs.

Parker now needs to raise $149,000 to purchase the seven-bedroom house in Raleigh where she will live with male youths who apply for the program. As part of the Barrington Village community amenities, Builders of Hope has arranged partnerships with other local ministries to provide free health care, a car and computer for each house in the subdivision.

Capital Area Workforce Development will help the young men get their GEDs if needed, take them to workplaces to shadow employees and help them apply to trade schools.

So far, Parker has raised about $2,000. She raised the bulk of the money through co-workers at IBM and the rest by selling raffle tickets at Trader Joe’s for a framed, autographed Michael Jordan photo. She hopes to raise the rest of the funds through grants and local public relations efforts.

As Parker stood at the Trader Joe’s cheese and wine counter, helping hand out samples to her supporters at her first fundraising event, she smiled. “Can y’all tell I just love my job?” she asked.

John Stone, her manager at IBM for more than 12 years, was there to support her efforts.

“I believe all things happen for a reason. As tragic as the things were that happened [to Parker], they led her to where she is today,” he said. “She has purpose that she didn’t have before. It’s good to see people who’ve found something they’re passionate about.”

Frazier Foundation
For information about the Pauline Frazier Foundation, visit paulinefrazierfounda tion.org or contact Sheila Parker at 247-7116 or sparker47@nc.rr.com. You can also find out more about Builders of Hope at www.buildersofhopeNC.org.