Scoop Green: Running for the 2 Year Unexpired Term Seat for the Holly Springs Board of Commissioners aka Town Council

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 0:10

Hello friends, you are listening to the Holly Springs Deep Dive podcast, soon to be called the NC Deep Dive. I am your host, Amanda Benbow Lunn, and today I am honored to be speaking with Scoop Green as part of our candidate segment for the 2023 municipal election for Holly Springs. Scoop is running for the two-year unexpired term seat for the Board of Commissioners for Holly Springs, also known as Town Council. He will be running against Annie Drees, Travis Groo, and Brian Norman. You will have the choice to vote for one of these candidates on your ballot in the municipal election. As with all the candidate podcasts, I am taking their introductions directly from their websites as an effort to be as fair and non-biased as possible.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 1:00

Scoop and his family have called Holly Springs home for 19 years, he and his wife have been active in the community as volunteer coaches for their boy sports teams, hosting food drives for the Holly Springs Food Cupboard, recruiting a group to manage water stops for the Law Enforcement Torch Run. He picked up the bagels and delivered them to volunteers at Hope Community Church when the service was at Holly Springs High School. During his 20 plus years in the non-profit, not-for-profit industry, he spent his time putting other people first. Scoop became more humble, compassionate, grateful and giving. He never made a lot of money in his career. However, he was able to raise money for programs that offered services to those who needed some help. As the Executive Director of the Holly Springs Chamber of Commerce, Scoop created, implemented and managed the Chamber Champion program, State of the Town/S tate of the County Forum, Partners Breakfast Event, fall Golf Outing and the Developers Tour of Holly Springs, and recruited Novant Health to build a hospital in Holly Springs.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 2:05

Scoop developed and fostered professional relationships with civic leaders, business leaders and elected officials throughout all of Wake County. He served on the Wake Educational Partnership, Quality Matters Committee, Regional Transportation Alliance Board of the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau Conference Table Advocacy Group. Scoop would love to hear from you and you can contact him to share with your family, neighbors and friends on how he plans to be an advocate for Holly Springs as town councilman. Without further ado, friends, let's dive in. What does democracy mean to you?

Scoop Green: 2:43

that's a great question, amanda. Don't know that anybody's ever asked me that. The short answer is free and fair elections. But democracy is. I think it needs to be inclusive to all. I think it needs to be equitable and fair to everyone involved. I guess the political landscape right now has that area so muddled. For me, as somebody who's been around for as long as I have, it's just. I guess it's just a freedom we enjoy and again, I just think it's a freedom that we enjoy that needs to be enjoyed by everybody.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 3:18

Well said. How long have you lived in the ?

Scoop Green: 3:21

I've lived in Holly Springs for 19 years now.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 3:25

Why have you decided to run for town council?

Scoop Green: 3:29

I just believe my personality, my leadership skillset and my life and work experience make me a good fit to be part of town leadership with the department heads, as well as the three elected officials that are still serving.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 3:42

Awesome, and let's say you win your election as a member of town council. Do you feel your job to make important decisions should be based solely on your own thoughts, your political parties thoughts or, as representative as possible, of every single one of your constituents? And why?

Scoop Green: 4:01

No decision is made in a vacuum with me. I want to gather information from as many different people who will be impacted by that policy, to get their input, to get their feedback, to ask questions from them, who will lean on town staff for their expertise, and consultants that we're working with. So, no, it won't be just me. It won't be a political party. It will be having conversations with everybody involved that will be impacted by that decision.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 4:31

Awesome and you kind of touched on it, but how do you intend to gather input from the community before casting important decisions?

Scoop Green: 4:38

Well, for me it's always been just talk to the people that are going to be involved. Just talk to the other parties that we will have to partner with to make policies and decisions. As you know, I remember my chamber days. There's never a day off, and so, as an elected official, there's never a day off. You're in the grocery store and somebody recognizes hey Scoop, what's going on with this, that and the other? You're ready to answer those questions. So, as somebody who's going to be the face of town as an elected official, I think it will be real easy for me to just have conversations with those in my neighborhood, my subdivision and all throughout Holly Springs.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 5:14

Okay, perfect. What do you believe are Holly Springs's strengths?

Scoop Green: 5:19

You know, I sat in on a town forum to an introduction for candidates running and I walked away from there with a really good feeling. Over the last five years we have had really strong leadership in place at the town of Holly Springs with the department heads that are there. They've got a clear vision of where they want to take Holly Springs. They have worked hard in the past to come up with that vision and they have reached out to different parties to gather input. I think that leadership right there is a strong point for Holly Springs as well as, quite frankly, we still have a lot of land, so we're attractive for businesses and homes to continue to build and grow in our area Perfect.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 6:02

What do you believe are Holly Springs's weaknesses?

Scoop Green: 6:05

I don't know there's so much weaknesses as it is growing pains. I believe that's what we're going through as a community. Water capacity. We still have to address that. That is growing pains. Transportation and traffic we still have to address those issues with our growing pains as we move forward. Then finding that balancing act to get us to a 70-30 home business tax base. I don't know that there's a weakness. I just know that we're going through some growing pains and we would need to address those as council and staff.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 6:36

Sure, many voters seem to be unhappy with the influx of growth in the area and its ramifications, like traffic and a lack of prepared infrastructure. What does sensible growth mean to you, and how do you intend to achieve it?

Scoop Green: 6:51

I think one of the things we need to look at is are we partnering with everybody to help us with those issues? Are we having conversations with everybody involved to address that and move forward? Even beyond that, maybe are we communicating with our residents that we're aware of those issues, we're working on those issues and here's our plans moving forward. I'm not sure that that's not happening, but I don't know that for a fact. I think if we are working on those issues, I would like to get that communicated to the residents, so we're aware of that, which is something I plan to do when I'm elected. The other thing we got to look at you talk about sustainable growth and I know the town council is looking into this the land use, and are we using that to the best of our ability to attract multi-family units as well as still making single-family housing desirable?

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 7:53

What are ways you have served the town and its people prior to running for office?

Scoop Green: 7:58

Wow, I've lived here for 19 years, me and my wife both active in coaching our sons in youth sports. I've held several food drives for the Holly Springs Food Cupboard. I was part of a mobile food bank that helped serve families in Holly Springs as well. I volunteered with Hope Community Church for three years. I was the guy that got the bagels every Sunday morning and, Amanda, you would not believe how much those people enjoyed that.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 8:30

That person is a very important person the one getting the food Absolutely.

Scoop Green: 8:37

I told the lady I said I don't know that I'm really even doing anything. She says oh my God, Scoop, you just don't know. She said go sit in that parking lot one Sunday morning and just stay out there for about 10 minutes and be late. You'll see how they appreciate those bagels. But that was fun. I've been active volunteering in different festivals and events in and around Holly Springs I think my chamber days. I made some small impacts that are still important in our business community.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 9:04

When were you part of the chamber?

Scoop Green: 9:06

I was a chamber exec from 2004 to 2013, 2014.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 9:14

What led to the transition?

Scoop Green: 9:17

There's a lot of things. I think the key was I thought that I had hit a ceiling and that was about as high as I was going to go. To be honest with you, my past experience from that was 10 plus years with YMCA. I just started missing the mission of the YMCA. I just wanted to get back into that nonprofit world. I've been with them now for six years, so I just enjoy that YMCA atmosphere Awesome.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 9:45

Have you been on any of the town's committees?

Scoop Green: 9:48

I did not serve on any town committees.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 9:51

Have you been a consistent voter in town elections?

Scoop Green: 9:55

Yes, that's the conversation we have. My boys are 19 and 21. My wife and I had talked about the importance of voting, probably since they were 15 or 16 each. That's something we don't take for granted in our household.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 10:13

It is so very important that everybody gets out to vote. What are your areas of focus for your campaign?

Scoop Green: 10:18

I guess I'm going to answer that two ways. One of them is I'm going to have to get out there and stop knocking on doors. I hope that people are open to that conversation. I hope that they're willing to have questions for me. I would hope that they, once I provide those answers, I hope that they would hold me accountable if they choose to vote for me. The other side of that is just communicate in what I believe are I wouldn't even say they're issues, because I don't know that there's a lot of issues. Again, I would go back to the phrase of we have some growing pains that we need to address.

Scoop Green: 10:56

I think, those are the main issues that are going to be important to our residents and moving Holly Springs forward with a vision that's set for us.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 11:07

Do you have anything particular on your platform?

Scoop Green: 11:13

You know, I got the tag phrase building bridges and empowering communities, and really what that comes down to a nutshell is it comes down to people, partnerships and progress, and so if we're going to build bridges, we have to reach out to those people that will be impacted on. Whatever that issue is we're talking about, we will have to create partnerships with everybody involved in those issues and the outcome of those issues, and then when you do those two things, you will see progress and it will help empower our communities.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 11:52

Mm-hmm, do you have maybe any examples of what you are foreseeing in the way of partnerships?

Scoop Green: 12:06

And again, I believe that the town levels they are having these conversations with our school board representatives, Department of Transportation, Triangle Transit Authority, Wake Education Partnership, our Wake Tech Community College would be some partners that I would want to reach out to, and again, our neighboring communities, now that we're you know you talking about water capacity. We're going to have to look beyond Harnett County to continue to get the water services that we need and want in Holly Springs. So you'll have to have those partnerships and those conversations in order to get the progress that we want.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 12:45

Okay, Do you want to speak a little bit more about the progress that you think we need for water capacity, what the issue is and kind of what you're envisioning around that?

Scoop Green: 13:00

Well, you know, the water capacity is not just the water we have, but it's the sewage we have to get rid of as well. And as we continue to grow as a community, you know the numbers are saying we may be as high as 60,000 residents in the next four years. So you need the water for those homes. You need to get the sewage out of Holly Springs. The Economic Development Department is doing an outstanding job in bringing more business and manufacturers to the area. So again, that's the water capacity that we will need. So we are having conversations now with folks in Sanford to see what we can do to partner with them in more of a regional water system, which is probably the direction we're going to have to go in. But we still we have to have those conversations so we can make sure that we can continue that service.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 13:53

Perfect, thank you. What does housing affordability mean to you and how will you address its lack?

Scoop Green: 14:03

I chuckle because there is a lack of affordable housing. Rent is gone up it seems like every year over the last couple of years and again the town has the. The town is looking at that as part of their strategic plan and I think again it goes back to are we maximizing? Or land use so we can accommodate all that? Or partnerships? Again, are we having that conversation with those developers saying, hey, we're good with this, but we would like for you to include X number of affordable houses in this subdivision plan? And it's doable. In fact, I looked at an article the other day. I didn't take a deep dive into it, but in San Antonio they created a subdivision with tiny houses for under $100,000.

Scoop Green: 14:49

And I was like you know, let's just let's take a look at that. I don't know if we need to go to San Antonio to view it, but let's take a look at how would that look in Holly Springs. Is that something we could even do? And then you've run that past your developers and say what are your thoughts on it. But the short answer to affordable housing is we need to. We need to take a look at our land use. We need to have conversations with our developers and see what they can do for us to help to help bridge that gap in affordable housing.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 15:15

Sure, and for just in case, listeners don't necessarily know what land use is. When you say maximizing land use or just land use in general, what does that mean?

Scoop Green: 15:26

Let me see if I got the exact definition here, but in a nutshell, the subdivisions would come in and say they want to do X, y and Z, and as a municipality, I think we need to start having conversations with them. Well, that's great, but here's our vision for what this subdivision can look like, and we want to be able to have single family homes, we want to have affordable housing, we want to have open space, we want to have maybe a greenway that comes through there, and so that is part of the land use that you want to look at.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 15:58

When making important decisions, sometimes you have to make compromises or choose the least sucky thing. In the following scenarios, which would you choose? Decreasing lot sizes of homes in order to allow a greater number of homes to be available at a lower price point, or increasing lot sizes to decrease the number of homes available lowering the environmental and traffic ramifications of having more people in a given area.

Scoop Green: 16:27

If you're talking about single family homes and yes, I'm in favor of a larger lot if we continue at the pace to just put as many houses as possible on X amount of land, then to me we are being short-sighted unless we have a clear plan in place to address the traffic that that's going to cost. So I would be more in favor of let's take a look at what would it look like if we had bigger lots and less number of homes on there.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 16:59

Okay, having fewer amenities and knowing many constituents may not be able to participate in those amenities because there's not enough space, in order to avoid raising the town's taxes, or would you be more prone to thinking ahead and feel it might be better to raise the town's taxes to a certain point in order to be reasonably proactive with the growing population? And by amenities I'm including public safety, fire, law enforcement, parks and rec, those types of things, okay?

Scoop Green: 17:31

The bond that is going to be on the ballot will address a lot of the parks and rec amenities that we certainly could use on the west side of 55 bypass and those. If you looked at the plan those, the plan for that it is. It's a large investment but I think it's an investment over time that makes Holly Springs a more desirable place for families to move to. When you're speaking of fire and safety, I know somewhere in the town's plan they were looking at building yet another fire station to address that.

Scoop Green: 18:06

I heard the chief of police speak and I don't know that he I don't know that. He talked about the need for more officers at this time. But if you look over the next four years, when we had 10,000 people, we certainly need to start having that conversation now about how we're going to pay for that. If it if it means raising taxes and again I go back to that's that's part of our growing pains we have to get to a tax base where we're closer to a 70 30 residential commercial to help offset those costs that we will have in the next four years.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 18:40

Mm-hmm, do you want to speak just a little bit more about the 70 to 30, in case people are unfamiliar with that?

Scoop Green: 18:47

Yep, ideally the town is looking at a 70% taxes coming from residential and 30% of taxes coming from business, and that's a pretty sound model. That's pretty conservative numbers, but it's it's a doable number that will help, will help pave for some of those amenities and public safety that we're looking for, and that's a number that's pretty consistent with most communities.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 19:13

Mm-hmm, and you may not know, but do you know where we sit now?

Scoop Green: 19:18

I do not, but I know it's extremely close to that number.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 19:22

Okay, all right, and one more scenario. Would you be more prone to allowing a commercial property owner their rights to remove trees on their property or trying to maintain tree buffers to allay environmental concerns, aesthetics and cleaning the air, especially because of the landfill odors that happen from time to time?

Scoop Green: 19:45

No, no, no, those, those buffers are extremely important. I would I would hope that we keep those in place if I'm elected. That would be something. Well, you know, when the town proposes that construction to us, that would be one of the things I say is we got it if? If it's not in there already, one of the things I would say is no, we got to do something to preserve the trees that are on there, to preserve that buffer that we need.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 20:09

Mm-hmm. All right, perfect. Is there a limit to what you feel may be reasonable if a situation warrants increasing taxes during your term?

Scoop Green: 20:18

I guess you would have to address that issue by issue and, again, just gathers much information from all parties involved before we can make a decision on that.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 20:27

Okay. Do you feel there are any major areas where the town is inappropriately allocating resources?

Scoop Green: 20:34

You know, at this time though, I do not.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 20:37

Do you have any creative suggestions on where to get alternative funds for the town to support the town's growth?

Scoop Green: 20:43

I would take a look at some some grant money that would be available. I would look at possibly public-private partnerships with somebody that wants to do something to come in. There are other ways to fund projects besides raising taxes and floating bonds, and I think that's two of the areas we could take a look at are there. Is it more grant money out there, and who can we partner with?

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 21:07

All right, perfect. Many times people, including those who may be your fellow town council members, have varying opinions. How do you approach a situation when there is a major difference of opinion?

Scoop Green: 21:19

with current council members or if I was on, if I was on town council and there was a difference.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 21:25

Right, if you were on town council and if there was a difference or just, I guess, in general with conflict, if you were on town council and a constituent possibly had a difference of opinion, so it could be your fellow town council members, it could be constituents, just anybody in general that has a difference of opinion.

Scoop Green: 21:44

I think you'd have to be open to that conversation, and in the past I have. We don't all have the same opinions on every topic. That would be a very dull place to be. What was that movie Pleasantville? I would like to see more people's opinion. My experience has been with both the Y and the Chamber. You need to give people the opportunity to express themselves.

Scoop Green: 22:08

And then, beyond that, you need to have the willingness to look at it from where they're coming from. You need to have a willingness to say hey, you know what? Maybe I'm a little too strong in my stance, maybe I need to listen a little more closely to what they're saying. Maybe I need to do a little more research on what they presented, so then I can come back with not just a greater understanding of where they're coming from, but with more information and more knowledge to let's find some even ground somehow, some way.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 22:37

Mm-hmm, perfect. Do you feel the town could be more inclusive?

Scoop Green: 22:41

Absolutely. In my four house radius I have a family from South Korea, I have a young lady from Argentina, I have a gentleman down here who is Hispanic, I've got a couple that just moved in two houses down from New Jersey. Folks that are coming here are coming from a lot of different places and when you say diversity and inclusion, that could be as simple as do we have the restaurants they want to go to? Are we serving the food? Are we aware of the differences that are moving into Holly Springs? I think there's a lot of opportunities for us to be more inclusive and that might just be my YMCA experience and my lifestyle with that. But I remember sitting in on a county-wide program and one of the consultants said that was one of the issues Wake C ounty needed to address and that was the lack of diversity. But that conversation was about eight years ago and I think we're doing a better job of it, but I still think there's room to improve.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 23:40

Perfect. Do you feel all constituents are feeling like they are seen and heard when it comes to town matters and issues they may be facing, like discrimination?

Scoop Green: 23:49

I think the ones who are vocal about it are certainly being heard. I think those that are just kind of sitting back and waiting to see what happens maybe they're not just getting the information that they need, and I don't know if that's an area we really need to look at in regards to some of those issues.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 24:05

And would you be willing to sign on to Wake County's non-discrimination ordinance? Why or why not?

Scoop Green: 24:11

I would like to have more information on that. I think there's value in that ordinance. I think it shows compassion for all of our residents. I think it's designed for us to be more inclusive of all of our residents and just to be aware that their voice matters and they need to have representation at the table. So I support that ordinance and we had that conversation in my house a great deal and I just think it's important that we be more willing to be more inclusive to everybody in the community.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 24:48

Okay, and have you gained any endorsements thus far? And if you happen to gain more after the recording of this podcast, where might voters find that information?

Scoop Green: 24:57

They would find it on my website and at this point I do not have an endorsement.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 25:01

Okay, I guess a little bit more specifically, where can listeners connect with you and find out all the latest information regarding your campaign?

Scoop Green: 25:09

They can go to Scoop4HollySprings. com. There's a Facebook page out there as well. Post a lot of videos recently. I would love to connect with them. I close each of my videos that are posted with: Would love to have this conversation with you. Just reach out to me anytime, and that's not just a tagline. I mean that I would love to reach out to anybody at any time.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 25:29

Okay, and just to clarify your website, scoop4hollysprings, is that the number four, or spelled out F-O-R?

Scoop Green: 25:37

The number four, yep.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 25:38

What is the Facebook page name?

Scoop Green: 25:40

I believe it's the same.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 25:42

Perfect, yes, okay, I see Scoop4HollySprings. Do you have any last thoughts you'd like to share with those voting in the upcoming election?

Scoop Green: 25:50

I want to share two things. I guess when I said in with that town form as an information session for candidates running, I thought one of the cool things that Randy the town manager did was he allowed the department heads to show us more of their personality as opposed to just what we see in their day-to-day work and at town council meetings. I thought it was pretty cool and some of the things they asked and that the department heads presented to us was just some personal information and I'd like to just share some of that to everybody listening to this so they get a little more understanding. Just the personal side I was born in a place called Lawton, Oklahoma.

Scoop Green: 26:27

I graduated college with the BS in Health and Physical Education from Cameron University, which was an N-A-I-A school there in Lawton. I've been married to my wife, Kim, for 24 years. We have two boys, Cal and Devon. Cal is 21. Devon is 19. We have two dogs, Crash and Momo. I've lived in eight different states but have currently called Holly Springs home for the last 19 years. I enjoy golf. I didn't say I was good at it, man, I said I enjoy it.

Scoop Green: 26:59

Watching and attending sporting events, attending local festivals and events, cooking and gardening. And then I would say, on my professional information, I've got 20 plus years with two different chambers and four different YMCA's. A background with that is program creation and development, building and fostering community partnerships and relationships, create and maintain operating budgets, recruit volunteers, supervise and train staff, create, implement and develop fundraising activities and events. I've been the public spokesperson for both those chambers and all four of those YMCA's and I believe strongly that we need to be more willing to have the conversation about being more inclusive and more diverse. And diverse means there's a giant pinwheel of what diversity could possibly be beyond just race and sexual orientation. So we need to consider that as we move forward as a community.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 28:02

And now, before we go, I have a lightning round of questions. So there are no right answers, there are no wrong answers, you can just say whatever comes to mind first. What is your favorite book?

Scoop Green: 28:13

Greatest Salesman.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 28:14

Who is someone you look up to and view as a role model?

Scoop Green: 28:18

I had a great role model from about the age of 21 to I guess. Lav passed away when I was close to 48. He was a real life cartoon character. He had a personality that just lit up a room. But what was nice about Lav was he just understood and watched the way he treated people that could never do anything in return for him, and that was something that I picked up. Just the way he would leave a larger tip for the weight staff, the way he would open doors, the way he would look at people's name tag to call them by their name, the way he would introduce himself Lav was a former football coach and the way he would introduce himself to football coaches at bigger programs.

Scoop Green: 29:00

He would always stick his hand out and introduce himself first, and I remember standing next to him when he spoke to Barry Switzer and Coach Switzer just looked at him and said Lav, I know who you are. But it was just something I picked up on from him and Lav was great. He understood a fourth of the people loved him. A fourth of the people hated him. A fourth of the people hadn't made their mind up yet and the last fourth didn't even know who he was and he was comfortable with all of that. So he was a great mentor to have and God rest his soul.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 29:31

What's your favorite way to relax and let go.

Scoop Green: 29:34

My house backs up to Duke Energy Property and I literally walk out my backyard and I'm on the walking trails.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 29:42

What's one thing that fills your heart with joy?

Scoop Green: 29:45

Short answers too: family and helping others.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 29:48

What's your greatest weakness?

Scoop Green: 29:50

I have a tendency to procrastinate.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 29:53

I also share that tendency. What's one thing you wished for as a kid?

Scoop Green: 29:58

Oh man, that's tough. I grew up rather poor. My mom raised five of us by herself, so she was on a limited income. My birthday is the day after Christmas. So as a kid and I didn't understand this until I got older but as a kid you got X number of things for Christmas and X for your birthday, which I know. So that's how it works for my siblings. But the good side of that is, when I did want that one thing and it was a higher ticket price, I would just go well, you can make that my birthday and Christmas present. So you know, when you wanted that new bicycle or you wanted that fancy baseball glove and bat, then that's how you parlay that together.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 30:40

Mm-hmm, what's something on your bucket list?

Scoop Green: 30:43

Great question, because I left two of them off. Two of the other things that the town staff shared was who was the most famous person you've ever met? And for me it was Joey Chestnut. And they said what is your dream vacation? And mine is to visit every major league baseball stadium, and I only have 13 left to go.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 31:00

Oh, awesome. And the last question what is your favorite thing about yourself?

Scoop Green: 31:05

I just and again, I gained a lot of this through Lav, but I just enjoy being around people that are different than me, and that different can be a lot of different things People who are smarter than me, people who know how to invest money better than I do, people who eat different foods than I eat, and I've just always enjoyed the fact I can fit in comfortably with those groups and that most of those groups welcome me into that circle. I'll give you an example of that. What I was with the Y, we ran that mobile food market and my two boys were about 16 and 14 at the time and I said no, you guys are going to start volunteering to help with this. You can just help carry the food from the center to the people's vehicles.

Scoop Green: 31:51

And my wife is African American and so my boys have always seen me interacting with their aunts and their uncles and other family members. But my oldest wrote a paper for school in his English class and said that's the first time I've ever seen my father in a setting with a majority of black people, and he was just as comfortable there as he is in our house and he is at Uncle Tommy's house. And for my son. He said that was the first time it really clicked for him, that I was comfortable being in that environment and that most of the people in that room welcomed me.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 32:27

That's awesome. I, too, value being able to sit around and have diversity around me, because it's always an adventure of what can you learn? What don't you know? What lens have you not had the opportunity to look through and reevaluate how you think about all the things?

Scoop Green: 32:52

I'll just share with you. One of my first Y jobs was in Dingman's, Dingman Ferry, Pennsylvania, and they were really big on hiring international staff and I mean there were there were folks from all over the world coming together. We lived on camp, we worked side by side and you talk about some lively conversations with folks from all over the world. Man, that was the place to be and you're right, it was a lot of fun to listen to their background and where they come from and you know they were open to us as Americans, asking questions and getting rid of some of those stereotypes, and so that was that was. That was a really cool experience and it's hard to describe to others until you just feel comfortable enough to putting yourself out there and doing that.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 33:42

Mm, hmm, I love it All right. Well, thank you so much, Scoop, for trusting me and being part of our candidate segment for our Holly Springs Deep Dive podcast.

Scoop Green: 33:51

Thank you for having me.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 33:52

Oh, absolutely. I wish you the best of luck with your upcoming election.

Scoop Green: 33:56

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 34:26

Early voting means your vote has even more of an impact. Early voting starts October 19th at the Wake County Board of Elections and begins October 28th and will run through November 4th at the John M Brown Community Center in Apex and the Avery Street Recreation Center in Garner. During early voting, you may go to any of these early voting sites. Election Day will be Tuesday, November 7th. On Election Day, you have to go to your designated polling site. Please remember you will need a valid ID to vote. This year. The voter registration deadline is October 13th, though you may also be eligible to register at the voting sites during the early voting period.