After a grant from UNC to travel the old Silk Road his senior year fell through because of the pandemic, Cy Neff (‘16) moved west to work on a chainsaw crew, doing long hours logging.
But he couldn’t see himself staying in such a career, the falling trees and dangerous equipment didn’t fit his laid-back personality. After finally being done with logging, Neff decided to couch-surf back to his roots in Durham where he found an unlikely position working the night shifts at a local homeless shelter.
By early 2021, Neff somehow found himself being promoted to managing that same homeless shelter. He got a deep satisfaction through the connections he made with its residents, but it couldn’t last long. Working with people at their lowest points started to get to him.
Once 2022 came around, Neff was out of work at the shelter and through some strange set of circumstances, found himself couch surfing yet again. Only this time, through Turkey and Macedonia of all places.
Once Christmas time came, Neff was back in Durham, doing his best to get his life together. At one point, he was working up to 5 jobs at a time, crowdfunding, working at restaurants and for programs like Feed Durham.
After writing for the Hook in highschool, Neff continued his passion for journalism by working at The Daily Tar heel all 4 years of college. Now, he does freelance journalism for The Indy and USA Today.
“I got into Indy through my connections from the homeless shelter and the people I met through my other jobs,” he said. “When you do good work with people, you quickly learn about all the bad things going on. We have 8 billion people on this earth. Why would I have a job where I just focus on myself?”
His memories of Riverside are hazy but mostly positive. He fondly recalls his time at the Eno and misses the greenery that surrounds Riverside.
“The best piece of advice I can give Riverside students is to be a sponge,” said Neff. “Learn as much as you can about everything you can because you never know what might catch your eye.”
