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Carrot-Top is now Freedom and Glory — different name, same people, same commitment to you.
In December 2015, a parent walked into Turquoise LeJeune Parker’s classroom at Lakewood Elementary in Durham, North Carolina, and asked a simple question: Do you know anywhere I can get food for my kids over winter break?
Turquoise didn’t know of a program. But she wasn’t going to let a family in her classroom go hungry. She and her husband took care of that family themselves. Then the thought hit her: if one family was dealing with this, how many others were too?
So she sent a text. To everyone in her phone. Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Chef Boyardee, oatmeal. Anything you can spare. Drop it by my classroom by Thursday at two.
Within 36 hours, she had enough to send all 22 of her students home with a bag of groceries and a gift. That was ten years ago.
It Grew Because People Showed Up
The growth didn’t happen because of a plan. It happened because people kept saying yes.
The second year, that text message raised enough to feed the entire third-grade class. By 2018, they were feeding every student at her school. By 2021, the food raiser had crossed $100,000 in donations and reached 12 schools.
A local attorney saw one of those early texts and spread the word through his network. Then a national applesauce brand got involved after hearing what one of Turquoise’s students said about their product. (That story is worth hearing in her own words on the podcast.) Costco donated backpacks. Lowe’s sent staff to volunteer. Sororities, fraternities, high school basketball teams, college students from NCCU and Duke, marching bands, church groups. All of them showed up.
Today, the Bull City Foodraiser packs around 5,000 bags twice a year for students at 12 elementary schools, along with several middle and high schools. Over a thousand volunteers make it happen.
“I could keep going with the amount of community support,” Turquoise told us. “There’s no way we get there without it.”
A Baby Costco in an Elementary School Gym
Turquoise calls packing week “a baby Costco.” On one side of the gym: a wall of 5,000 boxes of Cheerios. Then peanut butter. Then green beans, baked beans, corn, chicken, tuna, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, oatmeal. Every item is chosen with care. Nothing requires a stove, because not every family has one.
The packing itself has become a precision operation. Each bag is stacked a specific way so the team knows exactly how many fit in a U-Haul and how many rows deep they can go for each school’s delivery. She walks through the whole system on the podcast.
What used to take five days now takes two. In 2020, they were still packing at 10 p.m., loading trucks in the dark. Now, with around a thousand volunteers, they wrap up ahead of schedule.
On one of the early bags, Turquoise wrote: Love, Mrs. Parker and a whole lot of people.
It All Comes Back to Relationships
Ask Turquoise what makes the Foodraiser work and she won’t start with logistics. She’ll talk about trust.
That parent who asked for help didn’t walk in on the first day of school. It was December. By then, Turquoise had already been through open house, fall festival, Thanksgiving dinner, and two rounds of report card conferences with that family. They’d had months to build a relationship, and that’s the only reason the conversation happened at all.
“You cannot trust somebody you don’t know,” Turquoise says. “And I’m definitely not getting ready to be vulnerable with you to let you know my needs unless we’re in relationship with each other.”
It’s personal for her, too. Turquoise grew up with a single mom who was also a North Carolina educator, stretching every paycheck to make things work. She didn’t realize they were struggling until she was older. Her mom handled everything with so much grace that Turquoise simply never knew. She tells that story on the podcast, and it’s one of the moments you’ll remember.
She points out that the need doesn’t stop when kids leave elementary school. The same families move into middle school and high school. And the people who could use a bag of groceries aren’t always who you’d expect. Educators, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria staff. People doing essential work who are still stretching.
What’s Next
Turquoise wants to fully cover the middle and high schools where those same families end up. She’s heard from teachers that students have asked if there were any bags left, only to learn they were all gone.
Her vision? First Durham. Then North Carolina. Then the country.
She continues to lobby on Capitol Hill through her work with the National Education Association, advocating for fair pay for school staff, protection for HBCUs, and an end to child hunger. “One job should be enough,” she says.
Her Advice: Just Be Genuine
When we asked what she’d tell someone who wants to start something similar, she kept it simple.
“Is it about the people, or is it about you? Because the moment it becomes about you, nothing will prosper.”
She said she would have been grateful to help 20 families every year. The growth happened because the need was real and the work was genuine, not because anyone set out to build something massive.
“Real people helping real people. That’s all it is.”
Listen to the Full Conversation
There’s a lot more in the full episode. Turquoise recites the classroom affirmation she does with every class, every day. She shares where her nickname “O Gorgeous One” comes from. She talks about the emails she was sure were spam, from a game show, from CNN, from the President of the United States. And she explains why packing day reminds her of the finale of Sister Act II.
Want to support the Bull City Foodraiser or get involved? You can donate to the Foodraiser via PayPal. Follow Turquoise on Instagram (@ogorgeousone) or Facebook (Turquoise LeJeune Parker) for updates, volunteer opportunities, and ways to give.
Freedom and Glory, Tales of American Spirit shares stories of people making a difference in their communities. New episodes drop regularly. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
