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A Holly Springs Hero

HOLLY SPRINGS, NC (February 2008) - Bennie Glenn, 60, isn't one for sitting still. Farming since age 4, he now owns about 41 acres of farmland where he grows produce, much of which is organic. He also runs a stable.

Local seniors benefit on a regular basis not only from Bennie's produce, but from his giving spirit. "I had extra, and I knew people that I knew needed it, and they couldn't afford fresh food," Bennie said. "So I started giving it to them."

A carpenter by trade, Bennie also provides people in need with wood and other basic things. "Giving is just a part of life," he said.

In 2002, while he was a maintenance supervisor at Saint Augustine's College, the Triangle's Ace Magazine featured Bennie not only for fixing just about anything in record time, but also for taking that expertise with him on his first couple trips to Ghana, a country in West Africa.

The first time Bennie went to Ghana was in 2001, with a missionary church group. He built an infrastructure to help the community become more self-supporting. He recalled that for his second trip, he "took seed for planting, tools for farming and a willing heart and hands to help in feeding a nation."

So far, Bennie has made a total of six trips to Ghana. "If there is one people that can help Africans," he said, "it's Black Americans."

Giving back was just a way of life in Bennie's family. "I come from a large family, and I was the oldest boy out of nine kids...I always had responsibility for my younger brothers and sisters, so I never saw it as giving back. I saw it as what I did they looked at me to help them, and so [now] it's just a continuation of things."

Bennie credits his grandfather, Lucius Glenn, as his inspirational role model. "Sometimes, we touch things, and we don't know that we're touching them. Stuff that [my grandfather] told me as a kid has stuck with me. He lived a long life, and he was an independent person helping his people...that's where I got [my] ethic of giving back."

And what does Bennie get out of all his giving? "Just to know that you helped someone," he said. "I get a pleasure out of doing it...to see people's faces...when you bring fresh fruit to them, you can see it."