Working to give people a second chance: Vennie Himbry

Last week, Jeremy Rochelle moved into a small rented house in Bayboro. A piece of lawn furniture with a crocheted blanket for a tablecloth serves as his dining room table. In the bedroom, there’s a mattress on the floor covered with a warm bedspread that is folded down at the pillows. Clean dishes are stacked by the sink to dry. There are no decorations, yet.

Jeremy, who is 42, was released from prison in September and couch-surfed in the homes of family members for months until this apartment became available. “If I hadn’t had help, I would’ve been stuck,” Jeremy tells me, speaking of Vennie Himbry, the executive director of the Bayboro Development Center. “Ms. Himbry has helped me with dishes, my clothes, and found this place.”

“They call me the Black Moses,” jokes Vennie as she smiles at Jeremy. She is visiting his new home to check on him and see what else he might need, like a shower rod, which she notes. A small, strong, woman with perfectly manicured nails and coiffed hair, Vennie is known in the county for helping formerly incarcerated people like Jeremy get back on their feet, reenter society and stay away from prison. This work is the fulfillment of a dream passed down to her by her late husband, Joseph Himbry, who died in 2010. In 2019, she founded the Bayboro Development Center as a nonprofit to formalize her role.

“I’m always getting calls from the prison, ‘Can you find a place for someone?’ But housing is scarce. I’d say I can find a place for about 25% of the people they call me about. It’s not sustainable,” says Vennie. Her dream is to build a housing facility for those released from prison. She already has plans drawn up.

Jeremy’s eyes squint in a constant smile when Vennie talks. Jeremy is a large man who makes the room feel small—although he tries to minimize his presence by slouching and holding his arms tight to his sides. He wears a plaid shirt buttoned to his chin, khaki pants and Timberland boots, all donated by Vennie. Peeking above his collar is a tattoo of his youngest daughter’s name—Savannah. He rolls up his sleeves and proudly shows me the tattoos on his arms, many of which he drew himself.

The formerly incarcerated “often can’t go back to where they came from when they got into their trouble because the trouble is hard to escape there,” says Vennie. “I’d like to create a place where they can stay for a year, until they get their job and can stop carrying the weight of their prison sentence,” pausing before she adds, “It can feel like a life sentence.”

This week she will meet with North Carolina Sen. Bob Steinburg for District 1, which now includes Pamlico County, to talk about funding to create the facility. “If they are going to live in the county, they should have the tools they need to stay out of trouble. That means a stable place to live,” Vennie insists, “I know—I treat these men and women like they are my children.”

Jeremy was released after spending four years at the Pamlico Correctional Institution, a prison that houses over 500 inmates in Bayboro. He says he is grateful to Vennie and others for their help, and also grateful to be out of prison, where he lived in one room, a pod, with about 100 other men. “Not a minute about it was good. COVID put everyone on zero movement. No going to the chow hall. They stopped letters coming in. No visitors while I was there.” Getting out, he says, he feels nervous and shell-shocked.

Originally from Lowland, Jeremy has loved commercial fishing since he was 13. In the past couple months, he has been doing odd jobs like building a fence and cutting wood. But now that he has his own place to live, he says he feels he can try for his dream—a full-time job.

If you would like to talk to Jeremy about a job, please contact Vennie Himbry at [email protected]

If you have ideas for future bulletins, feel free to message or email me: [email protected]

To see more photos, follow me on Instagram @andreabruce