Ak's Column: Community Support Is the REAL Story
This is a love note. More to come!
Column
There are seasons in life when support stops feeling like a simple word and starts feeling like oxygen. This year, as Davidson Local celebrated five years, as I crossed the threshold of 30 years in journalism, and as I stumbled through some deeply personal milestones, I realized something important: people showing up matters more than money or perfection.
Sometimes support looks big and public. Sometimes it looks like someone answering the phone when your world is falling apart. Sometimes it looks like carrying crap from a storage pod. Sometimes it looks like sitting quietly beside someone in grief or confusion. Sometimes it looks like buying a book from a first-time author who is terrified people won’t read it. Sometimes it looks like my favorite editor from a “competing” newspaper showing up with a big ole hug exactly when I needed one.
And sometimes support looks like forgiveness.
Recently, during the event at Mount Tabor United Church of Christ, I accidentally left my grandmother’s wine goblets in a donation box. For a brief moment, my heart sank in the way only family memories can make--me-- sink. Thankfully, they were recovered. But honestly, even if they had not been, I would still have wanted to support the event and the mission. Things happen. People make mistakes. Grace matters more.
Over the years, I have learned that community is built in tiny moments people rarely see.
When my mother experienced a frightening series of seizures and strokes, I was overwhelmed trying to navigate hospitals, resources, fear, exhaustion, and uncertainty. Organizations like the Epilepsy Foundation became important lifelines. People like Toney Kincaid helped me navigate what felt impossible at the time. Sometimes people step into your life carrying knowledge and compassion exactly when you need it most.
I think about Rev. Smith showing up with his truck to help move my pod to my friend Kelly’s house, where she allowed me to keep it for more than a year. That kind of generosity doesn’t fit neatly into a thank-you note. It becomes part of your survival story.
This year also brought the release of my first poetry book, Scar Tissue, which still feels surreal to type out loud. Scar Tissue became more than a book to me. It became an anthem to pain and healing. A reminder that wounds may leave marks, but those marks also tell stories of survival. Writing it forced me to sit with grief, memory, resilience, trauma, faith, and the complicated beauty of trying to become whole again. Releasing it into the world felt both terrifying and freeing.
Along that journey, local author Barbara Presnell guided me through the process. Book coaching sounds fancy when you say it out loud, but what it often really means is someone reminding you not to quit.
I have also appreciated public servants who consistently show up for community organizations and causes, even when there are no cameras, headlines, or political advantages attached. Davidson County Commissioner Matt Mizell has been one of those people in our community. In a time when many organizations are struggling just to stay afloat, it matters when elected officials show up, listen, support local efforts and engage with the people doing the work. I also look forward to reading his book soon!
Then there are the quieter forms of support that often go unnoticed.
My partner in “no” crime, Raymond, has been one of those steady forces. Calm when life felt loud. Grounded when things felt uncertain. Not performative or dramatic, just present in the ways that matter most. Sometimes support is simply someone helping you carry the weight — as Jay would say — without asking for recognition for it.
And then there is Joel Leonard, whose support has never fit into a neat or traditional box. It has been creative, unpredictable, persistent, and rooted in believing ideas can still matter in the world. Sometimes support arrives looking more like possibility than certainty.
A special shout out to the interns and young people who continue to show up for whatever adventure local journalism throws our way. People like Addie Walser and so many others who jump into community journalism with curiosity and heart. One day it’s covering an event, the next it’s chasing a story, helping with photos, brainstorming impossible ideas, or packing and repacking the company car. Sometimes it means riding along to something completely unexpected with very little notice and somehow making it all work anyway. Watching young people embrace storytelling and community work with that kind of energy gives me hope for the future of local journalism.
Family matters too.
The kind of family that shows up over and over again, not just for celebrations but for the hard days, the exhausting days, the ordinary days. Beverly Kerr, Sedrick Kerr, and Aunt Harriet have recently been that kind of family for me. The kind who simply show up because love told them to.
And there have been countless others who stepped into difficult moments with generosity, kindness, encouragement, wisdom, patience, prayers, resources, conversations, and grace. Some people offered public support. Others showed up quietly behind the scenes. Both mattered more than they probably realized.
As I look back on these milestones — five years of Davidson Local, 30 years in journalism, publishing a book, surviving heartbreaks and health scares and hard conversations — I realize the common thread was never success.
It was support.
Real support is not always loud or polished. It does not always arrive in a pretty package. Sometimes it arrives in trucks, texts, prayers, borrowed space, advice, awkward conversations, grace, and second chances.
Love— shows— up.
And for all of it, I am deeply grateful.
