Page 13 - Demo

Often the best results come when our well-laid plans veer off on an unexpected side road, a fact that is proven by the women who have proved themselves pioneers in business and philanthropy. These three innovators, all natives of Pitt County, have each made an impression on the community without setting out to do so, on journeys characterized by creativity, humility and faith.
REBECCA SHRADER
When Rebecca Shrader graduated from East Carolina in 2006, she soon realized that she needed to find a different educational and career path. Enter the ultrasound program at Pitt Community College, which gave Shrader the training she needed to find a job at a high-risk obstetrical clinic in Durham and also helped equip her for the heartache — and the resulting outreach opportunity — that would soon come her way.
Shrader started reading ultrasounds, about four years later, pregnant with her first child, she scanned herself and recognized an anomaly in her unborn child. Her daughter Cora was born stillborn at 29 weeks. Through her grief Shrader started a blog, “Afflictions Eclipsed By Glory,” and tapped into the heartbeat of the infant loss community, soon drawing more than a 100,000 readers to her honest chronicles. After losing Cora, Shrader had a healthy pregnancy that resulted in their daughter Lydia, then the family adopted son Aben from Ethiopia.
She became pregnant again, but in 2017 lightning improbably struck twice when she gave herself an ultrasound and detected another anomaly, and her daughter Layla was born stillborn at 36 weeks last March. As Shrader has been drawn deeper into
the community of women who have lost babies, it has set her on a quest to give back to women like her. She initiated a fundraising campaign to donate two Cuddle Cots to the James and Connie Maynard Children’s Hospital at Vidant, and after raising more than $7,000 she was able to give the cots to her hometown hospital last fall. Cuddle Cots allow grieving parents to have more time with their stillborn baby while in the hospital.
“This is really how I can deal with my own pain, is trying to give back and provide a legacy for the girls,” she said. “It helps me a
lot to kind of pass on the wisdom I have gained.”
settle for F o r y e a r s T a y l o r m a n a g e d a c h a i n o f g a r d e n c e n t e r s a i n v e ea s r t e a r n g e .
North Carolina. But when the business changed ownership and
LINDA TAYLOR
Don’t settle for average. Unless you’re in the market for it.
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Debbie G. Vargas
Broker, REALTOR
Century 21 The Realty Group
1420 B E. Arlington Boulevard debbie.vargas@century21trg.com 252-341-1242
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Don’t
Unless you’re in the market for it.