Yesterday was a joyful day as we celebrated the Grand Opening and Ribbon-Cutting for the “School Resource Room” that is located here in our building but serves all of High Point. What began as a simple “yes” has gone from serving students at 8 schools this past year to now all 27 Guilford County Schools in our city of High Point! Amidst the excitement of a TV news crew, a Who’s Who of community members, food generously donated from local businesses, a mayor sighting, and so much more, it is easy to lose sight of the story.
Just over a year ago, our Serving Ministry team was approached by one of our partners, Communities In Schools of High Point, INC. who was relocating and needed some space to house a large clothing and shoe donation from 336 CrossFit. The answer was not simply a “yes,” but a, “yes, but what if…?” What if it was more than only storage? What if it could be something more?
Our collaborative dreaming became a generous reality as we applied for and received a grant from the Michael Peeler/Virginia Casey Funds of the NC Synod, ELCA–our Lutheran collective here in NC. And so the work began last summer to create and open the “Site Coordinators’ Closet” that would support the students in the schools where the 9 CIS Site Coordinators served. In our application though, we included the dream we had discerned with Communities in Schools; the dream that if we could do this for these schools and make this sustainable, in some indeterminate future it could be opened to every school.
Our members here at Emmanuel weren’t content with just offering space but also spent time cleaning, painting, and preparing the two classrooms. We put together metal shelving and assembled clothing racks. We sorted the initial donations that were in dozens of garbage bags.
And this past August we invited CIS leadership to join us in worship as we celebrated “Back to School Sunday” and officially blessed and opened the initial closet. And it began to serve students immediately. And that was that…until something big happened, or as we’d say God began to move in a big way.
The dozens of community leaders in the Business High Point – Chamber of Commerce “Leadership High Point Class of 2024″ decided they would make this their project for the year. Our city’s kids matter and why wait to serve them all? The last months were a blur as all these leaders worked together to redesign the space, add more storage, leverage connections for stocking supplies, create a new logo, and so much more. Their hard work culminated with a celebration yesterday for all of High Point, but the impact will continue for all the students the School Resource Room will serve.
Here at Emmanuel, we believe that God has placed us here for the sake of this community of High Point–not for us but to serve others. And we have identified that one of the ways we can do this well is partnership. This incredible work was only made possible through partnership: partnerships between CIS, the NC Synod, Business High Point, all the businesses represented by the Leadership High Point Class of 2024, the students in the ‘Construction Skills” program that built the huge wooden shelves, the restaurants that sponsored the celebration (The Blooming Board, REAL Kitchen & Market, Biscuits Brisket & Beer), and so many others here in High Point who supported this community endeavor.
It is good for us to be about this partnership work because we believe that our God has called us to be partners in co-creating the Kingdom of God–a world where all are loved and we work together to lift everyone up. We think it just may look like a city where every kid has what they need to thrive and succeed.