Local News

Open door to recovery: Myrover-Reese celebrates 65 Years

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Tuesday, 15 September 2026

Written by Jamie Bishop

More than 23 years ago, Amyn Abduk-Khaliq arrived at Myrover-Reese Recovery Homes as a homeless veteran searching for a fresh start.
He found more than shelter. With structure, guidance and people willing to stand beside him, Abduk-Khaliq built a life in recovery. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees, served Fayetteville State University for 15 years and retired in 2024. He continued working in the community and in recovery programs. In August, he was elected to the Myrover-Reese board of directors.
His return from resident to caretaker of the mission is the kind of homecoming that cannot be captured by an occupancy number.
Myrover-Reese will celebrate its 65th anniversary and National Recovery Month from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, at 560 Wilkes Road in Fayetteville. The free, drop-in gathering will include a live band, food trucks, games, a bounce house and opportunities to explore the grounds.
“Everybody is invited to come out,” said Melissa Reid, the organization’s resource development coordinator. “We just want people to come and look at the campus.”
Visitors can see a side of Myrover-Reese that is easy to miss from the road: wooded acreage, a nature trail, a greenhouse and places designed to make reflection and healthy routines part of daily living. Residents’ rooms and identities will remain private. Recovery requires community, but it also deserves dignity.
“It’s a very serene, beautiful campus,” Reid said.
The peaceful setting serves a serious mission: to provide a safe, supportive and structured environment for people seeking recovery from alcohol and other drugs. The organization operates residential programs for men and women and has the capacity to house 42 people. Its services include 24-hour supervision, substance-use and relapse-prevention education, connections to outpatient treatment, peer-support meetings and help preparing for employment, education, and independent housing.
The work began in 1961, when North Carolina communities had few formal options for people leaving treatment and trying to rebuild their lives. Jimmy Myrover and Pat Reese, two local men in recovery, joined members of Alcoholics Anonymous in establishing what the organization describes as the state’s first halfway house for recovering alcoholics.
“We had no money, just a lot of love and faith,” Reese once said, according to the organization’s history.
Fayetteville answered with food and donations during the home’s fragile first years. The organization took the Myrover-Reese name in 1971 to honor its founders. What began in one house grew into a network rooted in local families, volunteers, and donors. The names carried by its homes reflect those enduring community ties.
“Sixty-five years here in this community is a testimonial to the work that they do,” Reid said.
Today, two men’s homes on the Wilkes Road campus serve veterans and civilians. A women’s program operates in the historic Fellowship Home in the Massey Hill neighborhood. A new women’s residence is being built on the main campus, with completion anticipated by the end of the year, Reid said.
The move will place women closer to shared services and the larger recovery community while creating room to rethink how the existing house can support the next stage of independent living. A grant from the Women’s Giving Circle will help furnish the new home’s kitchen and interior spaces.
Myrover-Reese also works closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans can receive case management and referrals for medical and dental care, education, employment, legal needs and housing. Those practical connections matter because sobriety is not sustained by determination alone. A safe address, a job, health care, and trustworthy people can become the scaffolding around a new life.
The greenhouse and Veggies for Vets effort add another layer to that support. Developed with Off-Road Outreach, the project is intended to bring fresh produce, purposeful work, and service together. The anniversary gathering will give guests a closer look at the greenhouse and the campus nature trail.
Community support also comes through the Myrover-Reese Thrift Store at 1336 Clinton Road. Reid said store revenue helps sustain the recovery programs. Shoppers can find furniture, clothing, household goods, books, and other donated merchandise. People can help by shopping, volunteering or donating usable items; the store also offers donation pickup.
The organization welcomes financial gifts and frequently needs toiletries, twin bedding, cleaning supplies, paper products and nonperishable food. Volunteers can also share practical skills, including reading, writing and basic computer instruction.
Those contributions keep open a door that has stood for 65 years. Behind it are people doing the slow, courageous work of rebuilding trust, routines, and hope.
Abduk-Khaliq once walked through that door needing help. Now he has returned to help guide it. His journey gives the anniversary its clearest meaning: Recovery is not the end of a person’s story. Given time, support, and a place to begin again, it can become the chapter from which everything else is written.
For more information, to seek services or to support Myrover-Reese Recovery Homes, visit mrrh.org or call 910-779-1306.

Resource he once needed: Johnny Wilson’s years of service

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Tuesday, 15 September 2026

Written by Jamie Bishop

Before Johnny Wilson became a resource for thousands of people in Cumberland County, he was a boy watching his grandmother make something out of almost nothing.
She raised him on a farm without indoor plumbing. Some meals came from fish they caught or berries they picked. Money was scarce, and keeping food on the table came before watching Wilson play basketball or football.
Still, she gave.
She cooked for neighbors and church gatherings. If she had $5, she could not spare, Wilson remembered, she would find a way to give someone $1.
“We didn’t have anything to give, and my grandmother still gave,” he said.
That lesson became the quiet inheritance behind Wilson’s 27 years at Fayetteville Urban Ministry, where he now serves as president and chief executive officer. He sees its work not as charity performed at a distance, but as one neighbor recognizing another.
Fayetteville Urban Ministry’s mission is “to show God’s compassion for our neighbors in need and thus build our community together.” Wilson’s life gives those words a face. He knows what it means to need a dependable adult, a meal or an opportunity.
“I aspire to be everything that I did not have,” Wilson has said. “I want to be a resource to any and everyone.”
Wilson came to Fayetteville in 1995 to attend Methodist College, now Methodist University. He studied criminal justice and was fascinated by the system, but he understood something important about himself before graduation.
“I knew I didn’t want to lock people up,” he said.
He wanted to reach young people before a poor decision hardened into a record. Wilson volunteered as a mentor in the ministry’s Find-A-Friend program. After graduation, the organization offered him a position working with children.
“I just knew I wanted to make a difference,” he said.
What began with one mentor and one child grew into a career spanning the ministry’s four core programs: Find-A-Friend, Emergency Assistance, the Adult Literacy and Education Center and the Nehemiah Project.
Find-A-Friend provides mentoring and enrichment for young people. Emergency Assistance offers food, clothing, and other resources. The Adult Literacy and Education Center helps people strengthen reading skills, prepare for high school equivalency exams, learn English, or pursue citizenship. The Nehemiah Project mobilizes volunteers for critical home repairs.
Different doors lead into the ministry, but dignity is meant to meet people at each one. Wilson said the programs serve more than 15,000 people annually, free of charge.
Keeping that promise while expanding the organization is among his proudest achievements.
“As long as I’m here, and as long as the board will allow me to be here, all the services we provide will continue to be free,” he said.
Wilson points to the Manning Family Find-A-Friend Youth Enrichment Center as proof of what a committed community can accomplish. The building rose from open ground and, he said, was paid off before the final brick was laid through support from individuals and foundations.
“That’s more than legendary,” Wilson said. “It showed the relationships that we cultivated.”
Compassion requires more than good intentions. It needs tutors, mentors, repair crews, pantry volunteers and donors. It also needs careful stewardship. Wilson said annual audits have consistently shown that 86 cents to more than 90 cents of every donated dollar support program and direct services. The latest figure he cited was more than 88 cents.
Wilson has received the Key and Coin to the City of Fayetteville, the Greater Fayetteville Chamber’s Public Service Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fayetteville-Cumberland Human Relations Commission, among other honors.
The honors make him bashful. His own measure is simpler.
“Isn’t this what I’m supposed to do?” he said.
Wilson completed 27 years with the ministry on Aug. 23. Asked what people should remember about his leadership; he turned the attention outward. Anyone with shelter, food, clean clothes and an income, he said, has an opportunity and responsibility to encourage someone else.
“Find your why,” he said. “Get involved.”
Community members can give, volunteer individually, organize a workplace or church service day, mentor a child, help an adult learner, or join a home-repair project. Wilson said first-time volunteers often arrive unaware of the ministry’s reach. Then they serve beside others, and their view widens.
“Johnny, I had no idea,” he hears them say. “I had no idea this place exists and y’all do all of this.”
Wilson believes service interrupts the tunnel vision of busy lives. It reminds people who helped them and what earlier generations sacrificed. Everyone has a schedule, he said, but “you make time for your passionate things.”
For Wilson, that passion is rooted in memory: a grandmother whose cupboard was not full, but whose hand remained open. She showed him that generosity is measured by what someone is willing to share when another person needs it more.
Twenty-seven years later, Wilson is still sharing that inheritance, one young person, one learner, one family and one repaired home at a time.
To volunteer, donate or learn more about Fayetteville Urban Ministry’s programs, visit fayurbmin.org or call 910-483-5944. The ministry is located at 701 Whitfield St. in Fayetteville.

(Photo: Johnny Wilson celebrates 27 years with Fayetteville Urban Ministry this year. His dedication and service to the Cumberland County community are commendable. Photo courtesy of Johnny Wilson)

Chemours to pay $455 million for Fayetteville Works pollution

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Tuesday, 15 September 2026

Written by Lisa Sorg, Morgan Casey & Paul Woolverton, CityView Today

North Carolina and a handful of local governments agreed to settle with Chemours over its pollution in the eastern part of the state, the parties announced on Thursday.
The company will pay the state and 11 entities near its Fayetteville Works plant on the border of Cumberland and Bladen counties $455 million over the next 15 years for what the company said in a press release involved both the plant and “claims of PFAS contamination unrelated to that site.”
The state will receive $75 million of the $455 million while the local entities will share $380 million, with payment beginning this year. It’s the largest environmental damage payment in the history of North Carolina.
PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of forever chemicals found in water, soil, and homes near the plant. Exposure to the chemicals is linked to an increased risk of cancer, thyroid disease, reproductive problems and developmental delays in children, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Ten local governments were involved in the settlement: Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Cumberland, New Hanover, Robeson and Sampson counties, as well as the town of Wrightsville Beach, city of Lumberton, and village of Bald Head Island. The Lower Cape Fear Water and Sewer Authority also joined the settlement.
After the press conference, Cumberland County said it will receive $161.5 million from the settlement. Robeson County announced on social media its portion will be $22.8 million, including $2.3 million in the first year. Bald Head Island will receive $5.7 million, Mayor Peter Quinn told residents in an email.
The agreement also resolves the state’s lawsuit against Chemours, which was scheduled to be heard before the North Carolina Supreme Court this week.
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson valued the settlement at $590 million to include the additional $135 million that DuPont, Chemours’ former parent company, has to put into a reserve fund to meet the terms of a 2019 consent order the companies have with the state. If Chemours goes bankrupt during the payment period, the state will receive the entire settlement and the reserve fund, Jackson said.
Jackson told The Assembly and Inside Climate News there was a risk of Chemours going bankrupt during litigation. The company is currently valued at $2.28 billion. It is already required to pay $875 million to New Jersey over the next 25 years. Jackson said the settlement agreement’s reserve fund ensures the state and local entities will get paid as it puts DuPont on the hook for if Chemours goes under during the payment period.
“They wouldn’t be in this position if they hadn’t massively damaged the state and then lied about it for years,” Jackson said Sept. 10 at the site of a water cleanup effort in the Gray’s Creek community in Cumberland County. The community’s private wells were contaminated by Chemours’ chemicals and the county is expanding municipal water connections to provide residents clean drinking water.
Chemours Cites ‘Substantial Investments’ Reducing PFAS
Earlier this summer, Jackson, N.C. Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Reid Wilson, and Gov. Josh Stein denounced an agreement between Chemours and the EPA to settle the state’s claims that the company violated federal drinking and environmental protections. That deal brings about $2 million per year to North Carolina to address water pollution, 20 times less than what the state’s settlement obtained.
“We were hoping that the EPA would take this seriously, but they failed,” Jackson said in his announcement. “They did a slap on the wrist for these companies.”
About 3.5 million North Carolinians, roughly one in every three, drink water with PFAS levels above the federal health standards, Wilson told a crowd of local government officials and members of the media gathered in Gray’s Creek.
Chemours said in its press release the state’s settlement agreement acknowledges the “substantial investments to significantly reduce PFAS emissions from Fayetteville Works and mitigate off-site impacts in the surrounding communities.” North Carolina has already forced Chemours to spend nearly $1.2 billion on clean-up efforts across the state, Wilson said, including filtration systems on private wells and treatment systems at its Fayetteville facility.
Local entities have full discretion on how to use their settlement funds, Jackson said, as many have already spent millions on addressing the forever chemicals.
In August, two elementary schools in Gray’s Creek were connected to the Fayetteville Public Works Commission water system through a $12 million project to provide safe drinking water. In March, PWC approved a $133.7 million contract to build a granular activated carbon filtration system at its two water treatment plants that serve much of Cumberland County.
Neighboring Robeson County is piloting a carbon filtration system at its Rocco Treatment Plant in St. Pauls after months of residents complaining about PFAS contamination in their water. David Edge, chair of the Robeson County Board of Commissioners, said its settlement dollars will help pay for the filtration system and other yet to be determined cleanup efforts.
“This settlement can make a difference for generations if we make responsible decisions about what comes next,” Kirk deViere, chair of the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners, told the crowd. “Our work now moves from the courtroom to the community. Our commitment has not and will not change: We will protect our communities. We will pursue every resource available, and we will build, and we will not stop until our community has the clean, safe, regulated drinking water it deserves.”
The settlement agreement, which deViere said local leaders have already signed, doesn’t stop others from suing Chemours for damages. The state can also take Chemours to court if they violate the agreement, Wilson said.

UC&W Editor's Note: This article has been edited for space. To read the article in full, visit https://bit.ly/4imxW8W

Government Watch: Chemours pays out; City of Fayetteville receives grant

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Tuesday, 15 September 2026

Written by Jami McLaughlin

In the largest environmental damages recovery in NC history, state officials and local leaders announced a historic $590 million settlement with The Chemours Company and its affiliates on Thursday, Sept. 10. Standing at the construction site of the Gray's Creek Water Project, Cumberland County Board of Commissioners Chairman Kirk deViere joined State Attorney General Jeff Jackson to unveil the sweeping agreement. The resolution directly addresses years of toxic PFAS ("forever chemicals") contamination originating from the Fayetteville Works facility, which has compromised private drinking wells and regional waterways for over a decade.
Under the terms of the landmark deal, Chemours, DuPont de Nemours Inc. and Corteva Inc. will pay $455 million over the next 15 years, with payments beginning immediately this year. A significant $380 million slice of that funding will be divided directly among 11 heavily impacted local governments, including Cumberland, Bladen and New Hanover counties, to aggressively scale up municipal water infrastructure, extend safe public water pipelines and alleviate the burden on families living with contaminated taps. The state of North Carolina will receive the remaining $75 million, dedicating a vast portion to the Emerging Contaminant Mitigation Fund to bolster ongoing statewide detection and cleanup efforts.
Crucially, the settlement features an unprecedented $135 million bankruptcy insurance reserve funded by DuPont and Corteva. This financial safeguard guarantees that even if Chemours faces long-term financial insolvency or bankruptcy, the mandatory environmental cleanup, groundwater barrier walls and private well filtration programs required under the region's 2019 consent order will remain fully funded.
"Families who did nothing wrong have worried about what comes out of their tap," deViere said during the briefing, emphasizing that while the multi-year legal battle was about corporate accountability, the path forward is strictly focused on delivering clean water solutions. For more, see page 7.

Cumberland County
During the Sept. 10 agenda session, the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners received updates regarding two major projects, including the Crown Corridor Study and the Crown Theater and Arena modernization.
Board members heard Robert Van Geons, president/CEO of the Fayetteville Cumberland Economic Development Corporation, present the Greater Crown Complex Gillespie Street (I-95 Business) Corridor.
This study aims to transform the 631-acre area surrounding the Crown Complex into a vibrant destination and includes an evaluation of 251 parcels based on ownership, occupancy and development potential. A major focus is improving pedestrian safety and traffic circulation within a vehicle-heavy environment and identifying better connections to the airport gateway. Within 30 days, the team plans to present a detailed hierarchy of redevelopment sites, specific infrastructure recommendations and potential amenity uses to attract visitors.
The board also heard from Turner & Townsend Heery, the designated owner’s representative for the modernization and renovation project. Following a 3D scan and detailed site walk-through, the team told the board that they needed to look at either renovating the existing facility with limited modernization or imagining a new facility to replace the existing buildings.
Commissioners raised concerns about previous maintenance records and the necessity of reconciling past reports with current findings. However, Jessica Killian, representing the project team, stated that work was done with the latest technology, offering a more comprehensive fresh look. She confirmed that any of the proposed solutions would result in a break in programming and activities at the Crown Theater and Arena
Coming out of closed session, the Board of Commissioners voted to close the current Crown Theater and Arena to public events to allow for continued due diligence on the future of those facilities.

City of Fayetteville
The city celebrated securing a transformational $25.1 million HUD Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant aimed at investing in housing, family services and infrastructure along the Murchison Road corridor.
This historic milestone for Fayetteville was awarded jointly to the City of Fayetteville and the Fayetteville Metropolitan Housing Authority and marks the first time an eastern North Carolina community has ever secured this prestigious grant. The federal funding will serve as an anchor catalyst, expected to leverage more than $531 million in additional public and private investments to fully execute the community-led Murchison Choice Transformation Plan.
The project will fully replace all 60 units at the 56-year-old Murchison Townhouses public housing community on a strict 1-for-1, deeply affordable basis. The city will construct 323 new mixed-income apartments spread across the Murchison Townhouses and Elliott Properties sites near Fayetteville State University. The blueprint incorporates 35 new for-sale homes alongside exterior stabilization improvements for roughly 35 existing neighborhood houses.
This historic win was more than six years in the making. Fayetteville initially secured a HUD planning grant in 2020 but narrowly missed out on the final implementation funding in 2024. Instead of giving up, city planners leveraged HUD's direct feedback, strengthened partnerships with national developer Pennrose and aligned local anchors like Cumberland County Schools. Advocacy from the region's congressional delegation, including U.S. Representative David Rouzer, ultimately helped push the application past the finish line at HUD.

About the Greater Fayetteville Chamber
Advocacy is a cornerstone of the Greater Fayetteville Chamber. Every week, the Chamber dedicates staff to attend City of Fayetteville and Cumberland County meetings as well as monitoring updates on the state and federal levels. We monitor legislation locally, statewide and federally to protect our community’s business interests. With 91% of U.S. adults recognizing a Chamber of Commerce's impact on growth, membership ensures a strong voice shaping policies, driving economic success and building a thriving business community—together. To learn more, visit www.faybiz.com or email jmclaughlin@faybiz.com.

(Photo: NC Department of Justice and Attorney General's Office Jeff Jackson, center, addresses attendees during an announcement made regarding the Chemours lawsuit. Photo courtesy of Cumberland County NC's Facebook page)