Akeem Hassell gives advice to fellow wheelchair basketball player Jillian Weidner, 14. Hassell, a member of the Triangle Thunder team and a wheelchair basketball player since he was nine-years-old, has been her coach since she started playing wheelchair basketball a few years ago. Hassell found purpose in playing wheelchair basketball as a child and as an adult he spends much of his time coaching the junior varsity wheelchair basketball team and serving as a mentor to young athletes. “I was always the one to help with the younger boys that had anger problems or hygiene issues, they could talk to me about anything. I was more than a coach, bigger than a mentor,” he says. “A lot of people use sports to be healthy, stay in shape, to have a general sense of well-being, or to be competitive. For me, all the above apply.”

Betty Sue Yow discusses her husband John’s deteriorating health with a friend on October 30, Married for 58 years, Betty Sue and John grew up on local farms and eventually took over a 305 acre farm that had been in Betty Sue’s family for over 230 years. Throughout the years they have turned down numerous offers from cell phone companies, real estate agencies and others to buy their land. But with John’s health in decline, they have had to rely more on their two sons to maintain the farm. “This is a family farm. We hope that somebody will continue to farm it,” says Betty Sue.

Northwood’s Pierce Cook (center), Jamison Davis (12), and Jakari Green (9) overwhelm Cedar Ridge’s Isaiah McCambry (7) in the first quarter on September 27, 2019. The Northwood Chargers went on to win 24-8, sealing their second win of the season after three consecutive losses.

Northwood High School football players pack up the bus after losing 31-30 to Orange High in overtime. The school’s football team is very popular in Pittsboro, NC, but their 4-5 record was raising doubt. “I feel like guys right now, they want to win, they want to compete on Fridays, but it’s about trying to find that way of being able to finish at the end, whatever we need to finish. It can be tough, but it’s football,” says Coach Tobias Palmer, a former NFL player and Northwood alumnus.

Motivated by her father’s struggle with cancer, aspiring physician’s assistant Amanda Becker works at Chatham Ridge Assisted Living as a CNA and Medicine Technician. She enjoys attending to the needs of the residents. ““Time management is the number one skill of a caretaker, because sometimes we have 25 residents to ourselves. Even if they don’t all need attention, you still need to make sure they are safe,” she says. “They’re all like my grandparents. It’s cool to get to know them so well, and to learn the little bits about their lives. I think I appreciate them as much as they appreciate me.”

A member of Extinction Rebellion, an international civil disobedience activist group, protests the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in front of the United States Supreme Court on February 24, 2020. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a 600-mile long natural gas pipeline proposed in 2013 by Dominion Energy and Duke Energy to run through West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. If constructed, it would disproportionately affect over half of the Native American tribes in North Carolina, including the Lumbee Tribe in Robeson County. The Supreme Court held its first hearing on February 24, 2020. On June 15, 2020 the Court ruled 7-2 in favor of the construction of the pipeline. 20 days later, Dominion Energy and Duke Energy announced the cancellation of the project due to “legal uncertainties”.

Residents of Seine Bight, Belize, an impoverished community along the Atlantic coast, burn mangroves and fill them with garbage in an attempt to create buildable land for houses. This can lead to health and environmental problems for members of the community. Mangroves provide a natural buffer from hurricanes while filtering seawater and are a home to countless species. Trash pollutes the water and leads to health issues for members of the community. With rampant unemployment and a lack of sanitary trash disposal services, this practice is often the only way for locals to build their own homes. Trinell Smith Martinez, a Seine Bight village councilwoman, says they are doing their best to keep trash off the streets, but she doesn’t discourage using it to fill in land. “I’m pretty sure in years to come [Seine Bight will] develop more. Land here is gold” she says.