Meet Lieutenant Dan

  LT. Dan aka Dan McIver, a native of Sanford, NC is the proud father of two sons and two daughters and grandfather of eleven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

 

  Throughout his life, he cultivated a spirit of entrepreneurship starting at the age of seven, he would go to the tobacco fields of North Carolina and primed tobacco until the tobacco monkey was too hard to carry on his back. But he had a more difficult time picking cotton because cotton would bite you back when you reach for its neck. He also shined shoes on Sunday mornings before church at the local barber shop.

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  By the age of nine he became a businessman (as a paper boy) he increased his clientele from 110 customers to 228 clients of which eight senior citizens never had money to pay him. They would give him cookies and sandwiches for payment. In short, these wonderful customers were teaching him that a business person must give back to their community for the prosperity that they obtain in a capitalistic economy.

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  By eleven years of age, He was employed as a bag boy, cashier, stock boy, butcher, and short-order cook at a local white-owned grocery store. A store that caters to the local county black farmers. With this job, he was able to purchase at the age of 12 his own bedroom set. This included a desk, a chair, a lamp, and a vinyl floor covering to keep the cold air from coming into the room through the floor. The main reason he bought the complete bedroom set was to keep his sisters from peeing on him at night.

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  He brought this concern to his grandmother who told him that if he bought his own bedroom set she would buy his sisters a bunk bed to sleep in her room. On a cool county morning, a furniture delivery truck made a light brown dust bowl of dry rain evaporating on a ragged one-lane dirt road trail to his grandmother's home. His grandmother would not cosign for him to get the bedroom set. So his employer at Fleming Grocery, a mean-looking old man, six feet 5 ins tall with an authoritative voice and demeanor cosign for the $225  needed to get my first bedroom set.

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  At the age of eighteen, and after working eight years at Fleming store in various positions,  Mr. Fleming asked him what was he planning on doing after high school. He was lucky to be friends with the school principal's grandson because, on one fall evening while playing catch football in no man's land, the principal's manicured yard, Mr.  W. B. Wicker ask him and several other boys if they wanted to go to college.  He said yes sir, (for he recalled some of the graduates of my school were drafted and passed away in combat).

 

  Less than two weeks later after telling the school principal his desire, he received a letter in the mail stating he was accepted at A&T College. He informed Mr. Flemmings that he was going to college. Mr. Flemmings said, "Mop, I don't think you're smart enough to go to college, because my son is having a difficult time in college, and he is white." He then showed Mr. Flemmings the letter of acceptance from A&T College and out of the goodness of his heart, Mr. Flemmings got him another job at the US post office. This made him the first blackmail clerk in the town of Sanford, NC for three months prior to his going to college.

 

  He served in the military for twenty years as an Infantry Officer retiring in 1992. His first assignment as a second Lieutenant officer in the United States Army was at the White House in Washington, DC. His entire military career has been colorful and controversial. The military is the true melting pot of our society. Oh, the stories he can tell!

 

  In 1988, McIver created Life Force, the Living Vision (LFLV) after seeing undisciplined elementary youth in Columbia, S.C. As a result,  Major McIver passed out over 3,000 flyers and applications to the community, and immediately, over 800 children participated in the recently formed organization. to create empathetic work-ready global citizens.

 

  Today, LFLV has been renamed and transformed into YELP-LV: Youth Entrepreneur Leadership Program - the Living Vision. YELP is now serving several states in the United States. YELPlv is the fisherman of character and is there when it matters most. YELPlv is bringing law and order back to the classroom. an giving every child an equal opportunity to cultivate their God-given talents.

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Because of the high cost of living, It takes a nation to raise a child.