More Than a Dance
This is the fourth of a 12-part series on community builders who participate in Activate Selma NC.
After 30 years in public service for the Johnston County Department of Social Services, Lynn Stanley was ready to retire in 2021. Born and raised on Highway 39 in the Corbett Hatcher community of Selma, she wanted to travel, paint, and go to the beach.
“I always said my dad and I were going to do the Tar Heel Traveler trail and eat at all the restaurants,” Lynn says. She and her husband of 32 years, Fulton Stanley, employed by Guy C. Lee, also love shag dancing – that smooth, easy-going Carolina way of movement that connects you with great music and community fun. The couple likes to combine shag dancing with annual three-day weekends that raise funds for the Hope Abounds Cancer Network, travelling across the Carolinas.
But when her father passed away in early 2021, Lynn’s joy in their retirement plans stalled. “I just couldn’t recoup from the grief of his passing.”
Also, she missed helping people, like the older gentleman who came in several times a week to DSS, not because he needed anything, but just to talk to somebody. And taking needful items from the Angel Tree to nursing homes and giving them to elders who don’t have family to “love on them,” as Lynn would say.
Then she met Thad Woodard.
“If you’ve ever met Thad, you never forget him. He’s a very involved advocate for Selma. He said, ‘Hey, I understand you’re fixin’ to retire. Do you want to come to work for My Kid’s Club?’”
Lynn didn’t even know where it was. At the time, the afterschool program was housed in four modular classrooms behind Selma Elementary School. Hurricane Matthew had damaged their old building beyond repair. One trailer served as an office. Two served as meeting spaces for 80 children split by age. The last contained a bathroom, kitchen, and storage space.
Lynn told him no. While she had a heart for children, the task seemed overwhelming.
“He was like, ‘Well, you know, the kids really need you.’” she says, “but I wasn’t interested.”
Thad persisted. “If y’all don’t find anybody in a couple of months, call me,” Lynn softened. The summer passed. Thad tried again. Finally, in August, Lynn agreed to work part-time with Sarah Sheraski, the executive director at the time.
“That first day I went to work, somebody asked me, ‘Why do you think you want to be here?’” Lynn confessed. “I said, ‘I don’t know if they need me or I need them, but we’re going to figure this out together.’ That stuck. Some days I need them. Other days, it’s exactly the opposite. That’s how life is. You never know what somebody’s dealing with. If I can do something to take a little stress off of somebody else, then that’s what I want to do.”
Getting the message out about the club’s programming was a breeze; stamping out misperceptions about Selma was tougher. “Our youth do not come from problem homes,” Lynn says. “The majority are spending time at home with their families, being raised in a small town. And Selma has about the same percentage of residents living below the poverty line [27.1 percent] as Smithfield does [27.8 percent].”
“A person’s income has nothing to do with their character, their intent, and who they are as people,” she adds. “We can all be in that spot at any point in time, whether it be the loss of a job or the loss of a spouse.”
Lynn recounts how club youth learn commitment, determination, and perseverance through Selma Baptist Church’s On Beat drum ministry and summer drum camp with Pastor Todd Daniels. She takes them on routes delivering Meals on Wheels to teach them what community service is, and to sing Christmas carols to seniors. She knows of teens who have done odd jobs for Selma storekeepers to earn a few extra dollars.
“Our youth are well-versed in how to find work. That kind of thing doesn’t happen in bigger cities. I love our little hometown.”
Her Youth Work Dovetails with Activate Selma
About the same time that Lynn went to work for the club, Jean Kelly, another strong youth advocate, introduced Lynn to Activate Selma.
“Because my job is to get out in the community and tell people about the club, I came to one of the Wednesday morning meetings,” Lynn says. “Then I kept coming back, mainly because I found people who want to do the same things that I want to do – see the community grow and do little projects that bring awareness about what’s here in Selma.”
Her involvement in Activate Selma came after a capital campaign raised enough money over two years to break ground for a new building in January 2023. The SECU Community Clubhouse at 609 N. Pollock Street in Selma opened in January 2024. And then, My Kid’s Club merged with the Boys & Girls Club of Johnston County in October 2024.
She doesn’t consider the merger a big change. “It was inevitable. We had shadowed the Boys & Girls Club for a very long time in our policies and procedures, and our summer camps mimicked their camps. The kids have seen way more opportunities: Street hockey, outings with the Carolina Hurricanes and the NC State football team, things like that. Participating in Youth of the Year. We couldn’t do that when we were so small.”
So while Lynn might be dressing up in Christmas costumes and strolling through downtown during the holidays with Activate Selma friends or joining Chamber ambassadors at ribbon cuttings and grand openings – or even modelling clothes for Selma shop owner Cindy Mason at Over the Moon Boutique on JR Road during her Facebook sales – she also has been showing leadership in action by graduating with a class of her peers from Leadership Johnston in 2024, and was honored as Triangle East Citizen of the Year for 2024.
Pretty good for someone who set out to take it easy in retirement. She was even appointed to the board of Activate Selma in 2026.
“We’re like little magnets. If someone says, ‘I need this,’ another person in the group picks up on it and says, ‘Okay, I can do that.’ We’re aligned in our thinking. That’s a good thing, right? We want to make things better, and we follow through.”
Recently, Lynn, Fulton, and friends Ron and Heidi Hester came downtown to support the Eggscellent Spring Farmers Market in Art Out Loud Park and decided to buy lunch at Alta’s Coffee & Deli, one of three new restaurants on Waddell and South Raiford Streets.
“I hadn’t eaten there, so we got a sandwich, and it was amazing. So many people were in there, including this family from Princeton. My sister from Wilmington wants to try it, too. We have these great places now. The club director, Kourtney Bowden, almost didn’t stop there because she thought it would be too busy – but it’s not. They move people fast.” She iterates that Selma’s family-owned restaurants have learned the art of welcoming all to a cuisine that ranges from Pho to Mexican fusion to Boston-style bagels.
Serving on Activate Selma’s board, Lynn hopes to help the group move from grassroots to an even more solid foundation.
“If we don’t have policies and procedures, the group will go rogue. We don’t want that, not when you’ve put all that work already into it. There’s government, and then there’s people. People are the backbone. We’re the ones who volunteer, who make sure events get done, who get Selma’s name out there, and represent Selma as ambassadors everywhere. That’s just, if not more, important. If we don’t engage people, then Selma is going to be one of those places that just scribbles up and fades away.”
What Challenges Does Activate Selma Face?
First, Lynn acknowledges that in these politically-charged times, everybody has an opinion. “Just because we don’t agree on one thing doesn’t mean we can’t agree on something else and still be friends,” she says.
Second, “sometimes getting things done takes longer than you would like.” She references the ongoing discussion of the need for wayfinding signs. The Town has talked about them, but nothing has happened … yet.
Third, the need for volunteers. “I’m not opposed to people stepping in to volunteer, but then something happens, and they’re gone. What we needed you to volunteer for, didn’t stop. So now, we’re going to have to go back and pick up where you left off and do these things. And we don’t know where you left off. I’d rather somebody come in, prove that they’re going to be here for the long term, then we’ll give you responsibilities.”
Fourth, is the person who says, “That’s not the way we’ve always done it in the past.”
“You have to embrace trying different things,” says Lynn. “Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, you go back and start all over.”
Recently Lynn and Activate Selma’s media coordinator came up with a video challenge to engage Facebook viewers to tag a post for a Rockin’ on Raiford concert and possibly win a gift card. As a result, their post got 2,500 more views than it normally would have and was shared 45 times. The gift card winner was announced the night of the concert.
“No matter what your field, you have to embrace how the world’s changing,” Lynn says.
The second half of 2026 looks bright for B&GC: After a successful Circle of Champions Breakfast at Johnston Community College brought in $100,000 in donations – and crowd excitement provided by mascots for the Smithfield Tobbs and JOCO Tater Hogs – Lynn is looking forward to rounding up sponsors and participants for this year’s 50th Annual Boys & Girls Club Selma Railroad Run 5K on September 19.
50th
Also, with a new partnership provided by the Town of Smithfield, the Smithfield location of the club will move to an expanded location – the Sarah Yard Community Center – in August, which will bring opportunities for programming for even more youth in the 2026-2027 school year.
Personally? Lynn and Fulton’s only son, Will, is getting married in the fall. And the couple continues to see the payoff for those shag dance lessons they took a dozen years ago when they became empty nesters.
There’s a full slate of Rockin’ on Raiford concerts a’comin’ where they can dance to their hearts’ content. Life is good at home, “retiring” in Selma’s downtown “living room.”
For more about Activate Selma’s activities, and other community builders, go to https://www.activateselmanc.com/categories/5036-community-builders/
Great profile, Cindy! And as a former Development Director of a Boys & Girls Club myself, I applaud Lynn doing the work for the kids in what can be a discouraging yet rewarding line of work.