Jessica Jeter: Hometown Hero

When she was younger, Jessica Jeter just wanted her own room.

Now, the 20-year-old junior economics and political science double major is helping others get their own homes as fundraising and Youth United coordinator for York County’s Habitat for Humanity.

An aspiring attorney, Jeter’s well-kept and business-minded demeanor displays her as a woman fit for the courtroom.

Yet, Jeter has seen her share of struggle.

Early into middle school, Jeter and her family left their home of Baltimore, Md. and moved to Greenville, S.C.

Financial struggles followed them south.

“As a kid, I never had a room of my own,” Jeter said.

In May 2008, Jeter walked across the stage of Wade Hampton High School as a high school graduate. A new home purchased by her parents, the Rev. Dr. DeWayne and Kimberly Jeter, was part of her graduation gift.

“I always told my parents if there’s one thing that I wanted, I just wanted my own room one day,” Jeter said. “I just wanted to be able to come home to my own room, to my own space.”

Once graduating high school, Jeter got what she asked for.

Her next request was attendance at Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga.

She got in. On the same token, tuition was $33,000.

Having just purchased a new home, her parents couldn’t afford to send their daughter to her dream school.

Jeter went to Greenville Technical College her freshman year. Her parents hadn’t forgotten their daughter’s dreams of attending a four-year university.

Winthrop soon rose on the horizon.

Things didn’t become easier once Jeter , a sophomore at the time, was accepted to Winthrop. The day before her orientation, her dad, pastor of Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, lost his job. Around that same time, Jeter learned that the university wasn’t offering her any financial aid.

“The only thing that was offered to me was student loans,” she said.

Even with the loans, Jeter still had to pay $1,448 monthly to attend school.

“I was like ‘wow, we only lived in our new house for like a year, my dad just lost his job the day before my orientation and they’re asking that I pay this big ole lump sum,” Jeter said. “I didn’t know how I was going to do it.”

At the end of the day, it came down to Jeter’s parents making a choice between their mortgage or her tuition at Winthrop.

“I was like I can’t ask my parents to do that,” Jeter said.

She was ready to go to Greenville Tech another year but Jeter’s father, the Rev. Dr. DeWayne Jeter, was adamant that his daughter would attend Winthrop.

His determination paid off. Jeter and her parents cut out on-campus living fees from her tuition and decided that she would need to live off-campus. In addition, the mortgage was paid.

After hunting for apartments throughout Rock Hill and encountering issues with her first set of roommates, Jeter met her current three roommates and they moved into an apartment together.

Living at an apartment with a month-to-month lease, their landlord increased their rent during the scorching summer months.

With her parents paying her rent and her dad still unemployed, Jeter could not afford to stay in the apartment. Neither could her roommates.

Eventually, all four women moved to a Walk2Campus house.

Walk2Campus is an off-campus housing group which has formed a partnership with Winthrop to provide off-campus alternative housing for Winthrop students in Rock Hill.

Recently, Jeter’s mom’s medical coding company was bought out and her salary cut. Even with her father unemployed and her mom’s salary cut, Jeter said her family is making it.

“We pay our mortgage on time, the rent gets paid on time, we still have all of our cars,” Jeter said. “It just surprises me, it really does.”


Enter Habitat

It wasn’t strictly a love for volunteering that led Jeter to begin working with Habitat for Humanity—it was the people she already knew in high school.

“The high school I went to, a majority of the students were raised in single-home families,” Jeter said. “So there were one or two individuals I already knew of who had their home built [by Habitat].”

It was through this firsthand experience that Jeter saw the impact Habitat for Humanity made in the lives of children and teenagers. It was something she wanted to be a part of.

After her high school sponsored Greenville’s Habitat for Humanity for spirit week, Jeter began attending meetings. Soon, she was volunteering any Saturday she didn’t have a track or cheerleading competition.

While at Greenville Tech, Jeter wasn’t able to volunteer as much as she used to. Once coming to Winthrop and living off-campus, she faced many adjustments.

“I never lived on my own before,” Jeter said. “It was very difficult,”

Jeter, who described herself as a “daddy’s girl,” went home every weekend her first year at Winthrop to ease her homesickness.

Though she said she’s starting to find her balance, Jeter admitted she’s still undergoing the growing-up process.

“The more you grow, the more you mature, the more you learn, you find out your priorities—what’s more important to you,” Jeter said.

In the midst of her transition to Winthrop and York’s Habitat for Humanity, Jeter has found three roommates who are almost like her sisters.

“Opposites do attract,” Jeter said. “One is an art major; she’s like one of the students who walks around with the paint on the pants, and she’s very artsy and carefree.”

Jeter’s second roommate works with plaster and clay all day. The other one is an international business major.

Still, it’s the differences that meld them together.

“I’m the only African American roommate they have,” Jeter said. “All of us are so different that it just kind of mixes well.”

It’s a family thing

Helping others seems to run in the family.

Jeter’s mom, Kimberly Jeter, is a professional medical coder who pursued a law degree in college.

Jeter’s grandfather also pursued law.

Both went in opposite directions.

Jeter’s grandfather is now a pastor in Washington D.C.

After seeing what happened behind the scenes of a law firms, Kimberly deferred and look to the medical profession. To her surprise, she liked coding. Even though she and her father left the law track, Kimberly is hoping her daughter stays focused.

“I see a very focused Jessica,” Jeter’s mom said. “She has a plan and she’s executing it.”


Old Habitats die-hard

This past summer, Jeter returned to Habitat for Humanity; this time, working with York County’s affiliate chapter.

As fundraising coordinator, she leads a committee of volunteers who plan events and coordinate other activities to raise money for the organization.

It’s a labor of love.

One moment that touched Jeter was witnessing a mother receive a new home for her and her children to replace the old one, which was literally split in two.

“Even though my family may not have been as bad off as other families, I know what it’s like as a kid to want for something,” Jeter said.

Jeter said she knows parents, more than anyone, feel wonderful when they are able to give their kids a home.

“That’s what every parent wants to do—make their child happy,” Jeter said.

Katie Lockhart, a Winthrop University senior international business major, has been roommates with Jeter for 11 months. In that time, she has experienced Jeter’s tenacity for helping others.

“If she sees a person or a family who is in need and she can’t financially help, she really takes it to heart,” Lockhart said.

During Jeter’s earlier days with the York affiliate of Habitat for Humanity, Lockhart said some of Jeter’s female committee members thought Jeter was stuck-up.

In response, Jeter cooked a big dinner and invited them to the house for a girl’s night out, Lockhart said.

Lockhart and Jeter, who grew up five minutes away from each other but did not meet until they were both in Rock Hill, have developed a closer friendship since their initial decision to move in together.

“She’s a great roommate,” Lockhart said.

Since working with York, Jeter has seen many families shy to apply for a Habitat home.

She said some people are afraid they won’t qualify for a home because of credit reasons or they just have shame because of their situations.

“Don’t ever be ashamed of your life or what you’ve been through,” Jeter advised. “It makes you who you are as an individual.”

Jeter said her dad preached it best a couple of Sundays ago.

“He said, ‘you never know what issues God may want you to unmask could, for Him fixing your issues in public, that’s proving to other people what God can do for you.’”

In the past, Habitat required its applicants to have a certain credit score to qualify for homes. Now, with the economy’s ebb and flow, the nonprofit organization is just interested in seeing applicants possessing more income than debt, Jeter said.

Habitat for Humanity applicants still have to pay their mortgage, insurance, property taxes and utilities.

“If they see you can actually physically manage that without struggling, then you can get it,” Jeter said.


The Heart of Habitat Slideshow

Jessica Jeter, daughter of Rev. Dr. DeWayne and Kimberly Jeter, is the events and fundraising coordinator for York County's Habitat for Humanity.

The Taylors, S.C., resident got her start with the organization while attending Wade Hampton High School in Greenville, S.C., and carried her love for volunteering and helping others to Rock Hill when she began attending Winthrop.

While she has been unable to participate in many builds herself, the junior political science/economics double major said she is looking forward to her first one, most specifically the excitement and enthusiasm that comes with helping others.

"It's really just the excitement and the spirit that is actually on the build site," Jeter said.

This slide show displays the spirit, sweat and heart that goes into building a Habitat for Humanity home.

As Jeter put it, York County Habitat for Humanity is small but it is one branch of a large tree of similar organizations devoted to providing housing for low-income families.

The slide show includes pictures of a recent build by York County Habitat for Humanity in Clover, S.C. The families were not identified.



Podcast:

As fundraising and Youth United coordinator for York County's Habitat for Humanity, Jessica Jeter has aided in improving the lives of countless families in Greenville and York County. Initially getting her start as a volunteer in her hometown, Taylors, S.C., the 20-year-old junior economics/political science double major has been touched and inspired by her encounters with several families. I sat down to talk to Jeter about some of the experiences that have touched her most while working with Habitat for Humanity.

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