Elizabeth Staton started working as a Norfolk school crossing guard in 1967. She retired from the position in August 2023, a decision she said wasn’t made lightly.
NORFOLK, Va. — Elizabeth Stanton, 83, has spent her life protecting Norfolk children as they come and go from school for over half a century. The intersection of Hollister and Merrimac Avenues in Norfolk was one of many posts for Staton.
At the time, she helped children safely cross the road as they headed to the old Bowling Park Elementary School. Staton said she worked closely with the school’s principal, Dr. Herman Clark.
“I stayed on this corner until they closed the school down,” said Staton, as she stood at the crossing and reflected on the years spent there.
As Norfolk’s longest-serving school crossing guard, Staton said she may have worked at over two dozen intersections across the city during her record-holding career.
“I had worked from Tidewater and Alsace all the way back to Charlotte Street and Tidewater Drive,” Staton said. “Chesapeake Boulevard, Norview… I worked Five Point[s].”
Nowadays, though, Staton said she remembers less about the posts and more about the people.
One of those people happened to see Staton standing at her old post as he drove by. He stopped the car to show Staton his appreciation, telling her she helped him, his sister, and his daughter safely get to school.
Staton humbly beamed with pride, “It’s good when somebody stop[s] and recognize[s] [you],’ Staton said. “It make[s] you feel good that your work won’t in vain.”
Staton first reported for duty in 1967. At the time, her children were young, and she needed a job with flexible hours. But even after her kids were all grown up, she stayed on her post. By then, Staton said, it was because of the children she could help.
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“I know what I want somebody to do for my kids,” Staton said. “So, you know, I was out here for the kids.”
56 years later, Staton officially hung up the vest. She retired from the position in August 2023, a decision she said wasn’t made lightly.
“I still wanted to go back,” Staton said, “[But] I just said, well nah, it’s just time to let it go.”
Looking back on her long career, Staton said there’s not much she would change.
“I don’t think I took off a hundred days in these 56 years,” Staton said. “I went out there, rain, snow, hail, or blow… You had more beautiful days than you had bad days.”
Looking ahead, she said there’s not much she will forget.
“Encouraging the kids, you know, getting them across the street, looking forward to seeing them in the evening… that’s been my life,” Staton said.
Norfolk needs more school crossing guards. Pay starts at $18 an hour.
Hundreds of shoes representing thousands of children killed in Gaza on display in Alpharetta
A local Muslim organization wants to illustrate how tragic the Israel-Hamas conflict has been, and they are using kids’ shoes to do that.
ALPHARETTA, Ga. — Almost one month ago, the Israel-Hamas war broke out.
The conflict has polarized communities all over the world, but one local organization wants everyone to know about the most vulnerable and innocent casualties.
A local Muslim organization wants to illustrate how tragic the Israel-Hamas conflict has been, and they are using kids’ shoes to do that.
“Each shoe pair shows 100 kids that have lost their lives. They could have been here. They should have been here, but these lives are gone,” said Asra Mansoor of the Voices of Muslims. “Two hundred of them were babies, not even toddlers. They were babies under the age of one.”
There are 400 pairs of children’s shoes right at the center of Downtown Alpharetta’s town square — the pairs representing thousands of dead children.
Resident Emad Sabbah said his relatives are among them.
“I’m a Palestinian who lost four members of his family exactly 24 days ago. In Nabolis, not in the Gaza Strip. Not in the Gaza strip, in the West Bank by settlers who killed those four young ones,” Emad Sabbah said.
Organizers said thousands of children in the Gaza region have been killed in the war so far.
A banner displaying the names of some of those children sits in front of the footwear, but organizers say they would need many more to display all of the victims’ names.
“We didn’t have enough space on the banner,” Mansoor said. There could have been 16 banners, and still we wouldn’t be able to put all the names on those banners.”
Mansoor said she’s hoping that laying out all of the kids’ shoes in an area highly visited by Alpharetta’s community will bring awareness to the most vulnerable and innocent lives of both Palestinian and Israeli children who have perished.
