Volunteers keep an eye on North End drugs, prostitution

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This article was published 07/12/2009 (6018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When it comes to protecting her kids and community, Vanessa Folster is one of the best.

She patrols the 200 block of Powers Street in the North End, in and around William Whyte Community School, where drug dealers openly deal in the street, and johns cruise for prostitutes waiting on the street corner.

This is in the early hours of the morning too, while kids are being dropped off for school.

“A lot of kids don’t know what’s going on,” Folster said.

Folster, 35, is one of a handful of volunteer parent monitors through the Sage House, a program of Mount Carmel Clinic. The clinic received more than $143,000 from the United Way this year to help continue its community programming and keep parent monitors on their beats.

Folster has officially been in the role since 2005 and works four 30-minute rounds a day, five days a week. Her job? Patrol the streets to help keep drug dealers and prostitutes away from students.

But Folster unofficially started her job years before that, when she would walk her kids to school.

“It was something I was already doing,” said the mother of two. “I really care about kids and I want to protect the ones in my community. I do it to keep the kids in the neighbourhood safe.”

For the most part, Folster said her presence has helped to push dealers and prostitutes back into their shadows.

“It’s done a great job on all sort of aspects of crime in the neighbourhood,” she said.

Still, there are times when Folster has had to shield the kids she protects and to stand in between them and a deal taking place openly in the streets.

More than a dozen volunteers help Folster monitor the streets around six other North End schools. The message they send out to the city’s negative influences is that it’s not going to happen on their watch.

“It shows them that there are people out there keeping their eyes open and monitoring what’s going on in their neighbourhood. It makes them not invisible anymore,” Folster said.

Still, Folster is no stranger to being approached and asked to buy drugs. “I have been approached by people trying to sell pills,” she said. “I tell them I’m not interested and I get a good description of them to pass on.”

If it’s something like pills, Folster said, Sage House and the school are contacted. But if someone is trying to sell her something more serious like cocaine or meth, the police are contacted.

“I think the presence of someone out there keeps things quieter now during school hours,” she said. “I think there’s enough parents now keeping their eyes out keeping a watch of what’s going on.

“I told them I’m willing to continue this as long as they keep it going,” she said.

matt.preprost@freepress.mb.ca