North Charleston shooting victim determined to make a difference

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – One victim from Saturday’s fatal shooting on South Allen Drive, sharing here story about the traumatic event.

“While I was sitting in the desk area in front of the window,” Joyce Maybin Nesmith said. “I all of a sudden got this sting across my head and then I heard the ‘bang, bang, bang’, at that time I realized someone was shooting.”

A stray bullet skimmed Nesmith’s skull while she was inside her nonprofit Beyond Our Walls.

“I just got out of harm’s way and started to call the police and tried to see if I could get some help because I didn’t know how extensive my injuries were at the time,” Nesmith said.

Nesmith was treated at the Medical University of South Carolina Hospital before being released.

Although she is a shooting victim, she doesn’t have a victim’s mentality. She says now her nonprofit is more dedicated than ever to helping children in the North Charleston community succeed.

“That’s one of my goals,” Nesmith said. “To figure how do we as a community come together and surround ourselves around the young children that are growing up in our community to give them the hope that they need to be able to make better choices for their lives.”

Nesmith says she’s not afraid to go back into the community, because she knows several children are counting on her.

“As I sit here,” she said. “I say to myself we cannot not be in that community for those kids who come to us every day. I think of the names of the children and I’m saying there’s no way I can turn my back on them and say that I’m not going back down there. So, I have to go back.”

Beyond Our Walls has served the North Charleston community for eight years and Nesmith says they don’t plan on slowing down anytime soon.

“I’m just hoping that if nothing else,” she said. “The blood that I’ve left on the streets over there in that community, that we can take this as an opportunity for us to look at ways where we can start looking at building something different. Building an infrastructure in the neighborhoods where every neighborhood has a place children can go that’s safe.”

Nesmith says she’s doesn’t want to dwell on this incident and is already looking forward to hosting many more programs for children at the Beyond Our Walls activity center.