Beyond Back 2 School: How a Local Church is Serving the School Next Door
Carolina RamirezIt’s 7:00 am on a Saturday and the halls at Shady Brook Elementary hum with subdued energy. Teachers pop in and out of the shadowy hallway, working to set up their classrooms before the main campus lights are even flipped on. Shannon Gauntt, the principal, sits in the glow of her office window, checking emails as she listens to the laughter of women from Freedom Church. She smiles as they roll a cart full of snacks and decorations down the hall to the Teacher’s Lounge. School starts on Monday, but something just as important is budding today.
It’s been a week since Operation Back 2 School. 6,000 at-risk kids are at home with fresh boxes of school supplies, practicing their new-backpack-strut so that they can make an impression on the first day of school. Students in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District need a lot from their mentors. They aren’t alone. Educators here need just as much support from their community.
Programs like Operation Back 2 School and Night of Hope — the things we do at 6 Stones to support the most vulnerable kids in this community — aren’t meant to stand alone. They’re designed to be a starting point. A launch pad for meaningful, fruitful relationships between neighbors. A Catalyst.
Freedom Church understands that.
More Than One Night
When Freedom Church joined this community, they wasted no time getting plugged in. Following the advice of Ellen Lobue, the district’s on-staff social worker, Pastor Robert White and his staff came to 6 Stones shortly after planting their church. In 2016, they volunteered to host a Night of Hope party for the elementary school a half-mile down the road: Shady Brook.
“When we first walked into the cafeteria, there were so many volunteers in there. And they were so excited to be there! You couldn’t help but feel joyful when you walked into that area,” Gauntt remembered. “I knew that night, talking to the people from Freedom Church, that they were going to be great for our families at Shady Brook.”
Gauntt, who grew up in this area and graduated from L.D. Bell, knows the value of community support. She’s always looking for partners to help support students and families who attend Shady Brook. And she expects consistency in those relationships.
It doesn’t help her to connect with a church or business who is present for a season and then disappears. Her students — many of whom are first-generation Americans learning the ropes of a new culture — need a broad and reliable safety net. Marisha White, who oversees Family Development at Freedom, couldn’t agree more.
“Since we’ve done Night of Hope with them, we’ve decided that this is going to be our school that we love on throughout the school year,” White said. “whatever the teachers need or the administration needs, that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to step in and be that extra hand and feet for them.”
“When you’re consistent and you’re always around, they know that you truly do love them. If you’re in and out of their lives, it doesn’t build that relationship… they can see that Freedom Church is here and we’re here to help. I think it opens up a line of communication. They will call on us and they know that we’ll be here to help them.”
A Place to Recharge
Freedom returned to host Night of Hope in 2017 and will do so again this December. They send volunteers to Operation Back 2 School every year. In addition, they help distribute school supplies on campus at Bedford Junior High; the next stop for roughly half of Shady Brook students after 6th grade. They love having those touch points, but they wanted to do more. So they asked if they could be more involved, and Gauntt jumped at the chance.
At the end of the 2017-2018 school year, volunteers from Freedom dropped by to take photos of the Teacher’s Lounge. They spent the summer raising funds to furnish and decorate the room. Then, they sent a team of four women to transform the space in five hours on a Saturday. Starting in the early morning and working through lunch, volunteers from Freedom scrubbed every plate and counter in the room, swept and mopped the floors, stocked the shelves and fridge, set up a coffee bar, and even decorated the walls.
“They built this environment… that is just such a welcoming environment,” Gauntt said. “Teachers work all day and pour into their students; every bit of energy they have. So the teacher’s lounge, when they get the opportunity to go there, it’s that safe place for them, almost, that they can just kind of decompress for a minute.
“There’s lots of emotion that goes into teaching, besides just the academics. So having a space where they can go and sit for lunch, where it’s a calm, quiet environment, is really important for the teachers. It helps recharge them… it takes every bit of energy they have, and they use that time to get ready for that and to be the best they can for the students.”
Start Small, Love Well
Shannon’s favorite part of the day wasn’t the end result. She loved the new corkboard photo wall and the Keurig station. But she cherished the laughter of the volunteers above anything. All morning, she heard their joy echoing down the hall, intermingling with Andy Mineo lyrics as they worked to the accompaniment of an iPhone playlist.
“It was just an amazing opportunity,” she said. “It was joyful noise coming from that room.”
Gauntt is excited about the future of her school’s partnership with Freedom Church. She loves the message it sends to her students: together, the school and the church can show families in this area what it looks like to work together. Why they should care about the needs of the people around them. How to meet needs with authenticity and compassion.
“They’re learning now that their community plays a huge role in who they are; in what they’re going to do and what they’re going to be in their future. So if we can establish that great relationship with the community now, then growing up, they’re going to be more involved in the community. They’re going to really see how important it is, and they’re going to pass that on to their children,” she said.
“If we can touch their lives as they’re younger, then we can pour into them. As they grow up, they will continue to do what they’ve been taught as kids,” White said. “I’m hoping that they’ll see that we love Jesus, and that we’re showing them the love that Jesus has poured onto us… I want [the teachers] to feel that we’ve taken the load off of them, so it’s one less thing that they have to worry about. To make their day run a little smoother, and maybe give that extra smile or hug to a little kid that’s needing something.”
That seems to be the case; Gauntt has already communicated to the staff at Freedom that, regardless of how much their congregation grows, they aren’t allowed to leave. The partnership is too important, too impactful to abandon.
And this is only the beginning.
