Eye on the Triangle

Nick Pinto 0:00
The views and opinions expressed on Eye on the Triangle do not represent WKNC 8.1 or NC State student media

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Ellie Feaga 0:35
I am here with Mrs. Cecilia Dean from free moms. And we're going to be talking a little bit about free mom's at NC State and what they're doing on our campus to help students by having local moms engage with our NC State students improving health and welfare on campus. I'm also here with Cheeto Cheeto is Miss Dean's dog, and he's a big hit at free moms. So to start out, we're going to listen to some of the interviews from students starting off with Connor and Sam. Have you been to free mom's before? Yes, I have. Okay, how many times do you think you've come here?

Unknown Speaker 1:06
Oh, gosh. Too many to count. I feel like too many to count. Yeah,

Ellie Feaga 1:10
that's awesome.

Speaker 2 1:11
Probably. I've tried to go every Thursday since like, last fall.

Ellie Feaga 1:15
No way. Yeah. Have you gotten to meet some of the moms like you know them now? Jen

Speaker 2 1:18
and cinnabar? Probably my go to because Simba kind of reminds me of my dog. Oh, that's awesome. He's super, super nice. Yeah, the

Ellie Feaga 1:28
dogs are a pull to come. Yeah. And you get some food when you come? Oh, definitely. Okay, nice. Um, have you have you gotten build a relationship with any other students while you've been here?

Speaker 3 1:37
I've met another person who's in my major. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And I'm in biochemistry. So like, we kind of don't know each other till you hit like really? Upper level class. Right. So it was nice to meet someone who was like she was older than me, too. Oh, that's

Ellie Feaga 1:51
really cool. What do you think has really drawn you to come back for all this time,

Speaker 2 1:55
I think probably just just to kind of take a breather and take a break, kind of get a little bit of a step away from the stress of classes and, and just kind of sometimes it's nice to just talk to somebody else about what's going on. What

Ellie Feaga 2:11
is your name?

Jay 2:12
My name is Jay.

Ellie Feaga 2:13
Have you been to free moms before?

Jay 2:14
Yes. I've been coming here since last year. Oh, wow. Okay, so

Ellie Feaga 2:18
you've been here quite a few times now? Much the start of it. Yeah. Awesome. And do you have if you feel like you've built a relationship with some of the moms? Yes,

Jay 2:25
absolutely. I love them all. They're always here to offer like a hug or a cookie or for you know, whatever. Yeah, there have been times where I've come here and it's been like, I'm Jewish. So it's been like Passover or something. And I can't really have a lot because things aren't necessarily kosher. Which I keep kosher during the High Holidays. nacelles. But um, they'll always be there. Like, we have fruit. We have things like this, things like that. And they're always willing to like offer up something and give you a hug and everything else. They're

Ellie Feaga 2:52
very sweet. Okay, what is your name?

Haiti 2:53
My name is Haiti Hyman.

Ellie Feaga 2:55
So have you been to free mom's before?

Haiti 2:57
Yeah, this is my second time.

Ellie Feaga 2:58
This is your second time. Okay. So did you meet any of the moms last time that you've seen seen again? Yes. I met her. She does. Mom. Yeah. You met Miss Deane. She does mom. Yeah, absolutely. Like

Haiti 3:07
she speaks Spanish as well. So we have like some cultural similarity. So that's amazing.

Ellie Feaga 3:13
When was the last time you came here?

Haiti 3:15
Like two weeks ago, because I got busy with like a test that I have Kim. But

Ellie Feaga 3:18
so when you came here, did you get some like stress relief from that camp test? Definitely.

Haiti 3:23
Because I was just like, so stressed about it. And I was like, I saw the dogs for the first time. And I was like, what's going on? So I came here. And I saw they were so cute. And I met Cheeto. He's so cute. It's amazing,

Ellie Feaga 3:33
right that you come here and there's no strings. They're not looking for you to sign up for something or buy anything?

Haiti 3:38
Yeah. And then you get snacks for free as well. And hugs. Amazing. Right? There's

Ellie Feaga 3:41
a really positive response here. We're gonna go back to miss Deane for some more questions. So how did you get involved with free mom's? Um,

Cecilia Dean 3:49
I've moved into the area. And then I saw it on Facebook. It was a Facebook post that someone had posted something about free moms. And then I met with Nancy and Allison. And that's kind of how I started.

Ellie Feaga 4:02
is free mom's only at NC State or is it meddler schools in the area?

Cecilia Dean 4:07
Actually, other schools reached out and Nancy, our founder, she's actually the one that started meeting with folks and try to help to try to help them start it up at other schools. So I know that they have something. And in Wilmington, and a couple of the other upstate, I think, and there's quite a few and they actually keep in contact with us and post on our free MoM hub. But

Ellie Feaga 4:32
NC State was the place where it first started. Yes. That's really cool. I think it's great. There's obviously a lot of moms in Raleigh who want to get involved. My mom said she saw it on Facebook and she said if she lived in the area, she would want to be Miss Dean's right hand man. Oh, that's awesome. But you know, coming from a lot of people who come from out of state or even if they're in state and they have like Heidi Ed said her mom lived an hour and a half away. You know, that's still pretty far and it's nice to have moms close by because I Everybody needs to talk to them. Oh,

Cecilia Dean 5:01
yeah. Oh, yeah, we've had a lot of moms that have said that they want to be a part of it. And there's a lot of ways to help. So if they can't come, they can bake and send it in. And there's a couple of folks that will drive around and collect the, like the baked goods and bring them to state. And then there's a lot of moms that are in the area, but work. And so we have actually a couple of moms that will take Thursdays, like, one Thursday a month off, and they come and volunteer. So they do a lot. And then they send donations through their Venmo and stuff, and so that we can buy donuts or whatever, or fruit whatever's in season for the students, but that's their way of like helping long distance.

Ellie Feaga 5:43
That's awesome. How would you say you have developed some relationships with some of the students? Um,

Cecilia Dean 5:50
I think that every student that come has a, a person that they gravitate towards, or a dog that they gravitate towards. And so if they have, you know, something like I, I've had a lot of students that come to talk to me because I speak Spanish. So they'll come around, and they'll ask me because of my name, my name Cecilia. And so they'll have my, you know, my name tag, and they'll say, Do you speak Spanish or just because of the way I look or, or they'll hear me talking to another student. So I get a lot of international students or I have students that are from NC State, or from the Raleigh area that are taking Spanish classes, and they want to practice. So they'll come and speak Spanish, so I've built relationships with them. And then I actually have a few that started coming when I started with free Mom's back glass, I guess, last fall, and we just, they'll text me when something's going on. Or they'll come by when they have an exam and tell me how they did or whenever they have something going on, one of our girls had a car accident, drunk driver hitter. So she came and told me all about, you know, what's going on. And I think just they, they come and they vent. And so then the next time they come around, I'll ask him about it. And so it's just building that, you know, relationship, someone that they can a familiar face when they come to free mom's. So I really enjoyed that part of like, building that relationship, getting to know them, where they're from, what they're studying that kind of stuff. So I tried to be I had a student come yesterday, she's from Chile. And she was looking for English classes, free English classes. And so I just went online pulled it up for her. But that was just helpful to her. She was She appreciated it. But just little things, just so yeah,

Ellie Feaga 7:44
absolutely. I think one thing that's really special that I kind of gathered from talking to some of the other students is the consistency of it. Where when you start college for freshmen and sophomores who maybe don't know a ton of people yet, people aren't always consistent in their lives, and they're trying to make friends. Sometimes it's more difficult. But if you have this set time that they know, every single Thursday, they have someone to talk to, I think that's really encouraging when they never know when they're going to get to talk to different people that they're going to become friends with through clubs and stuff. But this is consistently there as a part of their lives. And they at least have one solid relationship with someone maybe from free moms,

Cecilia Dean 8:21
you know, we have a couple students that set their schedule around free moms, so that they're able to stop by at some point, their school schedule. Yes, that's amazing. So they all tell us, you know, we had a couple of students come by, and they're like, I made sure that when I, you know, was signing up for classes that I made sure that Thursday's is like I left the gap to stop by one because now we have the Centennial Campus going on. And so they're able to stop at one of the locations. So that's kind of nice to know that we may, you know, that much of a difference in their life. And, and then I just got a post that I saw on the, I guess, Reddit that someone posted about a Cheeto and I and so, you know, I was just reading it and just to see, like, Cheetos name on there. And I was telling, you know, my family, like, you know, you don't realize that you're making a difference in somebody's life, you know, when you're doing it. But when I heard that he just spent my day to day just, you know, knowing that me giving a little bit of my time, and I enjoy it. I get a lot from going to free moms because I'm an empty nester. And so, you know, and they're missing their mom, and I'm missing my kids. And so we bond over that. So it's really nice to know that you're making just a little difference in their day.

Ellie Feaga 9:38
Yeah, I want to ask about Cheeto for a minute. So he's obviously become a bit of a local celebrity. And I've heard at least in Jenny's head that Quinn has a cult following as she called it. Yes. I love that.

Speaker 7 9:49
I've got Quinn has a bit of a cult following. It's kind of hilarious. He again, he heads up on a lot of Snapchat stories. I think there might have been an app called Yik Yak that was used last year that his picture would pop Bob, some of the other dogs pictures would pop up there was a lot of comfort can happen or can be given with dogs unconditional love. So I asked Nancy, I said, Hey, you know, we've had a lot of sadness on campus can we do to like, lift that up a little bit? Who can I bring my dog? And she's like, Sure, let's try. Let's see what happens. So I brought Quinn in October and it went off like crazy. So he was super happy. The kids loved it. Chino, our shitzu that he also does the nursing home circuit. He's a therapy dog joined in quickly after and then we're we have just snowballed exponentially grown with the dogs. We're probably up to about 50 Dogs now in our volunteer dog pack. Yeah, I just I've added about 25 dogs in the past two weeks. It's insane. And so

Cecilia Dean 10:46
Quinn and cheetah or the OGS, the first dogs that came to campus, and we just kind of tried it out and saw that it was a big hit. The students loved it. And then when, you know, one of the dogs wasn't there, for whatever reason, the students would come around and say, Hey, where's Quinn? Hey, where's Chico or whatever. Or if I was still parkade, and I would show up a little bit late or, you know, just trying to get to the location, they would say, Oh, someone was looking for you. Like they come specifically to look for Cheeto. And you know, and so it's just nice. So I'm glad they added the dogs. And you know, they added the dads. And did they really? Yeah, yeah, we have dads that come. So we added the moms then the dogs and the dads. We have grandma's my mother in law. When she comes she goes, I bring her and they love grandma's. So that was kind of nice. And then we kind of grown. We did the like the treats. They did the birthday table. And then they added the flowers. And the flowers are a big kid too. So just little simple little things that brighten up people's day. So it's been really nice.

Ellie Feaga 11:51
Another question was, so we've moved to Centennial Campus. That's fairly recent, right? Yes,

Cecilia Dean 11:56
last semester. We kind of wanted it to start, everybody was asking us to move over there. Everybody said, Oh, we wish that we had something like that over here at Centennial. And some of the students from that live closer to like Wolf Ridge is a Wolf Ridge, they would make the trip down to tally. And they would say I wish it was closer to us. And then. So we kind of expanded and last semester was our first semester was the little we we kind of tried it there at the end of the semester only had a few visits. And it was a hit. So we came back this semester at Centennial and the lines and we've had to tweak a little bit of the times. Because apparently there's we would start from 10 to one. And we noticed that we were missing some of that 930 crowd, because it was already aligned. I guess there's a bus that drops off or their classes. So they switch the time from 930 to 1230. And that seems to get a lot more students. But yeah, it's been a little bit of a learning like, you know, trial. You know, we try it out if it works, it works. If not we

Ellie Feaga 13:04
and you do that both on Thursdays,

Cecilia Dean 13:06
yes, on Thursdays we beat at Centennial, from 930 to 1230. And then then the next location starts in wolf Plaza from one to four. And some of the moms that are at Centennial, and some of the dogs will go to both locations. But then we have our centennial moms and we have our wolf Plaza moms. And so it's kind of they they both are run a little different. But we're the same. They're both free mom's awesome.

Ellie Feaga 13:39
And I think remind me that you had to move from tally to the brickyard last year. And there was Was there a reason for that? Yes.

Cecilia Dean 13:50
We had a couple of incidents where we had a couple of the staff from NC State come out and talk to us about because we're, we're we weren't we're not a, you know, a student. We weren't a student organization. So we were, you know, basically moms that got together that wanted to do something for NC State students. And so we started growing. And we went from, you know, two moms, three moms to 20 moms and then dogs and dads. So the crowd drew a bigger crowd. And we had lines forming. So one of the things their concerns were was that we were causing a little bit of a hazard because it you know, fire hazard or and then another thing was that we were taking up tables that the students could be using. So we they worked it out to where we were able to still stay on campus but moved locations and now we're starting at Wolf Plaza this semester. So what

Ellie Feaga 14:54
can students do to support the organization and hopefully ensure that it keeps going Weighing versus continuing to be maybe pushed out of some boundaries that are really helpful. Yeah,

Cecilia Dean 15:07
we have a group B that they can join. And we have a student now that's the president, that's helping us with, like setup, because now that we have a new location, we have to put up tents, there's a little bit more that has to be done for setup. So a lot of we have a few students that sign up to help us carry the stuff from, like the food that gets dropped off to the location because it a little bit further out for us. And, you know, for us to set up the tents carry the tents break down, put, you know, the breakdown of putting putting up so we have a couple we have a student, I think banks is one of our regular kids that comes and helps us do that. And, but if they joined, sign the group me and they sign up, there's a little place where you can sign up in. And you can, you know, either sign up to set up or break down or just support us by, you know, being a part of the group. So if you can't help us this semester, maybe you can help us next semester. Things like this, how

Ellie Feaga 16:07
can a student access the group meeting join it?

Cecilia Dean 16:10
If you go to the group B there's it's called free mom, free mom Thursday that Nancy will go and allow them into the group and, and that's where usually the communication between us and them happens. And we'll tell them, hey, we're, we need more help, we'd have enough signups and people show up. So God

Ellie Feaga 16:29
is awesome. Well, it thinks it's a really good organization. And obviously, the students agree. Everyone that I spoke to yesterday, students and one mom, Jenny included, just talked about how amazing this has been for building relationships between students and moms, and dogs and community members. And I'm so glad that we have these moms who are coming out to sort of support our students because I think the school is doing is providing resources but some some things you can't get from anyone but a mom, so well. Thank you so much for letting me interview you. Yes, yes. Can I get Cheeto to talk trash in the

Cecilia Dean 17:06
trash? Oh, you're sitting pretty. Tito talk to us.

Ellie Feaga 17:14
Good boy. This has been Ellie with Eye on the Triangle, you're listening to ADA point one WKNC HD one Raleigh.

Welcome to Eye on the Triangle. I'm Ellie Feaga with this week's triangle news roundup, and it's what some Raleigh residents would call the most wonderful time of the year. In fact, some travel far and wide for these very special 10 days. The North Carolina State Fair is going on beginning Thursday, October 12. To Sunday, October 22. It fair is an opportunity to really engage in some of North Carolina's classic culture. You can visit the village of yesteryear and engage with some local antique craftsmen, or perhaps attend one of many agricultural contests and displays. North Carolina is still the number one producer of tobacco in the country, and visitors can learn about the interesting process and strain tobacco and how to produce it. There are local cooking contests, where people use local ingredients of North Carolina and add some of our classic flavors. For anyone interested in cars, trucks, tractors and more. There antique machinery displays that show the production of North Carolina vehicles from then until now. The garden horticulture section allows for North Carolina and botanist to compete with their plants and flowers produced throughout the year. People often are attracted to the biggest pumpkin and watermelon contests, where you can often buy a seed from the biggest pumpkin in the world, and maybe even enter yours in the following year. There are even contests for beautifying small plots of a garden and of course, North Carolina's famous Christmas trees. You can even visit the animals and do some interactive activities like the NCSU animal science clubs Dairy Bar, where you can take a clinic to milk a real live cow and not just any cow but one of the famous ones. That brings us our Howling Cow ice cream. And lastly, I love visiting the forestry education displays where you can meet the giant Smokey Bear who may even say hello to you some helpful tips for visiting the fair and 2023 for the first time ride passes have gone digital rather than a wristband. You can get a card with a chip which you can reload from an app on your phone. And we know all too well that a lot of people come to the state fair just for the food. My personal favorites are the apple cider stand in the historical section. And of course I love a giant turkey leg this year. There are several new products listed on the state fairs website. New featured fair foods included little logos empanadas from a rapper loca, a bacon mac and cheese Sundae from Bob was bacon and deep fried keen Bach, a Korean sushi roll from bulgogi Korean barbecue. You can find these and many other new treats on the state fairs website WKNC. We'll be covering the State Fair and we have many more fun stories to come. So stay tuned in the next couple of weeks for more state fair content. Next up, we are expecting Tropical Storm Shawn to be bubbling up to our North Carolina coast in the coming days. Storm Shawn is actually the 19th storm we've had so far in this 2023 hurricane season. In the coming days. We want to remind you to stay prepared with umbrellas and rain jackets and always be mindful of flooding especially when driving. However, there is no need to worry as scientists expect the storm severity to settle as it crosses the Atlantic Ocean and it is likely not going to be a cause of damage to the North Carolina coast hurricane season ends in November so we are nearing the end of our frequent storm watch. And speaking of nearing the end MTSU students we are now in the latter half of our fall 2023 semester. Stay safe stay healthy for the second part of the semester. This is a reminder that you've got this and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. After the content we have a lot more music for you. So thank you for listening. This has been Ellie Feaga with Eye on the Triangle. You're listening to 88.1 WKNC HD-1 Raleigh.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai