Our hearts are heavy this week as we consider the state of our nation. The COVID-19 pandemic has shed a glaring light on the health and economic disparities that affect people of color. Now, amid this crisis, we find ourselves confronting another crisis, one that has been around for far too long—the systemic racism that devalues African American lives. Tragically, people continue to die at the hands of those with power, both police officers and civilians. Our nation is on edge. We grieve the senseless loss of life that results when we do not value every human being equally.
At Emmaus House, we too struggle with a way forward. We condemn the killing of our African American brothers and sisters as well as the inequities that deny opportunity. Our values statement reads, “Emmaus House stands for justice and equity, rooted in faith and a deep respect for the dignity of every human being.” We believe that this statement is aspirational. So, we feel challenged at this moment to consider our response to the pain around us. We do not have easy answers or a list of simple solutions. And we know that words are cheap and do not alone change anything.
So, we commit to the demanding work of reflection and listening. We continue to examine how we do our work to make sure that we live according to the values to which we aspire. We approach our work with humility, knowing we do not have all the answers.
As we reflect, our daily work continues. Yesterday, we launched a new literacy program for rising second and third-grade students at the Barack and Michelle Obama Academy. We know that summer reading loss is a significant challenge that sets many children even further behind at school. That loss will be even more severe this year, given the lack of class-time brought about by the pandemic.
We reflect, and we work. And we invite you to join us as we endeavor to create a world where all people experience justice and peace.
Emmaus House in the Time of COVID-19: Responding to the Needs of our Neighbors
Part 2: Food
Navigating Community Needs
Hunger and access to food is consistently an issue for the neighbors of Emmaus House. For many families, benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as Food Stamps, routinely run out before the end of the month. With no major supermarkets in the area, residents have to drive several miles to shop or pay high prices for limited goods in nearby convenience stores. Those without automobiles must carry groceries home on a bus or walk blocks with heavy bags—an especially challenging situation for older residents.
Over the years, Emmaus House has always been there to tide neighbors over, providing groceries from its food pantry to supplement other benefits.
Now, with restrictions in place to avoid COVID-19, the challenges are even greater. Other food pantries in the area have closed. MARTA has reduced bus service. People have lost jobs or had their work hours cut back. And Emmaus House could no longer welcome pantry shoppers into its building to choose their food.
“Overnight we became one of few places in our area still open,” said Adam Seeley, director of social services at Emmaus House. “We had to evaluate our own position—how could we have staff and volunteers serve people? We had to create a whole new model of logistical services. Client and volunteer safety are the top priority instead of efficiency.”
Now clients choose from a list of available products and tell volunteers their choices. The volunteers pull groceries from the shelves, fill bags, and pass them through open doors or windows. People who need food are asked to make appointments to prevent crowding at the facilities, although some walk-ins are served.
To accommodate the greater needs caused by the virus and the limited assistance available, Emmaus House has temporarily suspended requirements for proof of residency and geographic limits on who is eligible for services.
The adjustment hasn’t always been smooth, Seeley said. One complication was that, just before the COVID-19 restrictions were put in place, the Atlanta Community Food Bank—the source of much of Emmaus House’s food supply—was closed for a move into new facilities.
Even though the Emmaus House pantry had to stop services for a week and a half in March because supplies were depleted and the food bank was shut down, statistics show how much demand jumped. “Things just exploded,” Seeley said. Volunteers handed out 6,200 pounds of food to 184 households in less than three weeks, up from 4,600 pounds of food in all of February. In April, the numbers rose to 12,400 pounds.
“Our clients have been really understanding and patient as we’ve made changes as we go along,” Seeley said. “That’s never ideal. You like to have a plan in place before the need for it arises.”
Fortunately, he said, volunteers, donors, and agency partners have come through to help.
Helping Hands
Parishioners from St. Martin’s Episcopal Church are filling bags, which they call Bags of Hope, to bring every week. Other groups and individual families are making donations. And Carver Market in nearby Historic South Atlanta is also selling a version of Bags of Hope for Emmaus House. Church of the Epiphany formed a partnership with Carver Market to sell a version of Bags of Hope for Emmaus House. (The market itself is a model neighborhood resource, founded by Focused Community Strategies (FCS), a nonprofit organization to provide healthy foods and fresh produce at reasonable prices and to provide jobs to neighborhood residents.)
Likewise, organizations are helping to get food out to people who can’t come in for themselves. Welcoming Atlanta, a program of Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ Office of Immigrant Affairs, assists new residents from other countries whose language barriers make it impossible for them to call, make an appointment, and communicate with English-speaking pantry volunteers. To serve the immigrant population, Seeley and Emmaus House executive director Greg Cole bought beans, rice, and tortillas in bulk at the Atlanta State Farmers Market so that the pantry could provide culturally appropriate food.
Innovative Solutions for Disadvantage and Disability, Inc. which works with grandparents raising grandchildren with special needs, makes sure their clients get the food they need from the Emmaus House pantry. And the 5-5-5ers, a homegrown neighborhood group in Peoplestown, receive food at the Emmaus House pantry for their neighbors and members who can’t get out.
The 5-5-5ers are a steady force in the Emmaus House community. Several years ago, five women launched a group for people 55 and older. They planned to meet five times to see whether the organization would gel. They’ve been meeting and working together for neighborhood causes ever since.
Jane Ridley, 75, was out of breath, just arriving home from making a grocery delivery. “I have a back problem, but I do what I can,” she said. Others, she said, do much more.
Rachel Harris, 71, has been on the receiving end. “5-5-5 is bringing food to me,” she said. “It’s slow for me to get around.”
While Emmaus House is making sure its neighbors have food, its neighbors are helping Emmaus House create and maintain community, even in times of pandemic.
Volunteer Mark Laster lives in the neighborhood, works part-time at a local funeral home, and helps run the food pantry in his off time. “We try to make sure we have what people need,” he said. “I try to make sure they’re happy and they make sure I’m happy. We’re like one big family. Customers, too.”
To buy a $35 Bag of Hope from Carver Market:
Go to www.carvermarket.com/emmaushouse, and select the "carry out" option. Emmaus House will pick up the bag. The grocery items include cereal, cereal bars, macaroni and cheese, flour, canned tuna and salmon, rice, beans, black-eyed peas, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and bath soap. Emmaus House will distribute the bags to individuals and families in the Peoplestown area.
Contact Ann Fowler at 404-525-5948, ext 27 if you have questions.
Emmaus House in the Time of COVID-19: Responding to the Needs of Our Neighbors
Part 1: Housing
New Challenges
Amber Middlebrooks found herself in need of help in the wake of a job loss resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. She was furloughed from her position with an insurance company and couldn’t pay the rent on her apartment.
Emmaus House has been there for decades for people like Amber who need help. The Episcopal mission has worked on the southside of Atlanta since the 1960s, serving residents of Peoplestown and surrounding areas. One of its missions is to help people stay in their homes through assistance with rent, mortgage payments, property taxes, and utilities. For now, during the virus threat, utility cut-offs and evictions are suspended, but if people don’t keep up with their bills, they will be far behind and at immediate risk when the ban is lifted, said Emmaus House executive director Greg Cole. “We’re helping people not to get so far behind that they can’t dig themselves out.”
Nia Miller, a single mother with two children, was unemployed last year, not knowing where to turn. A friend took her to Emmaus House, where she was connected with a job-training program and job-search network. Soon she was working for a cosmetic store.
But with the threat of the coronavirus keeping people home-bound, women were no longer shopping for lipstick and eyeshadow. In March, Miller was laid off. She had been living paycheck-to-paycheck, and “I was really struggling,” she said.
This time she knew where to go. Emmaus House helped her pay the power bill, and, she got food from the mission’s food pantry.
“I’d been doing for myself for so long, it took me a while not to feel guilty,” Miller said. “But things were kind of falling down around my head. I thought about my two children. Sometimes you do need help to get where you’re trying to go.”
Many people seeking help these days work in the service industry, such as restaurants and stores, said Emmaus House case manager Tanisha Corporal.
A demographic study of the residents around Emmaus House shows that 16 percent work in retail and another 15 percent in “accommodation,” such as hotels. Those businesses have been hard-hit by the orders to shelter-in-place. The same study shows that even before the virus hit, unemployment in the Peoplestown-Mechanicsville area around Emmaus House was almost ten percent, three times the national average, and that median household income was only $23,711, compared to $60,293 nationally. The community – with many people already stretched financially – was being disproportionately affected by the economic implications of COVID-19.
Things Looking Up
There is some good news, however.
Emmaus House’s funding for housing and utilities will get a big boost soon when a $157,000 grant from the Stadium Neighborhoods Community Trust Fund hits the bank account. The fund was established to help the neighborhoods around the old Turner Field baseball stadium, sold to Georgia State University for $30 million in 2017. Some $5 million was designated to support projects to benefit the neighborhoods around the stadium, including those served by Emmaus House.
The sale brought with it the promise of new mixed-use developments, but many long-time residents of the Emmaus House service area regard the plans with skepticism. Upscale coffee shops and micro-breweries will do little, they say, to benefit people struggling to hold onto their homes and pay utilities. Squeezed between burgeoning businesses around the stadium and the popular BeltLine, a $4.8 billion, 22-mile project to convert old railway rights of way into a pedestrian- and bike-friendly trail, residents are finding their once-dormant community a popular place for higher-income families and singles who relish the new amenities and the brief commute to downtown. With each fancy apartment complex and cul-de-sac of new houses to appeal to the influx of new residents comes the danger of rising property taxes for people who have spent their lives in their homes.
Emmaus House staff and volunteers are working out a process to maximize use of the stadium trust funds, said Corporal. At the same time, for the foreseeable future, they have to give people the housing and utilities assistance they need without putting applicants and staff at risk through in-person contact.
“We’ve come up with an online form that clients can access,” she said.
Using the information on the online application, the Emmaus House staff verifies the applicants’ residences, the amount they owe, and to whom, then follows up with a telephone interview and an appointment to drop off documentation.
Everything seems more complicated under the COVID-19 threat. But the help is more crucial than ever.
Help from Emmaus House “means everything to me,” said Amber Middlebrooks. “If it weren’t for them, I would probably get an eviction notice.”
Here is a list of the services we are continuing to provide in the midst of the health and economic crises caused by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19). Please continue to check back for updates.
In our help center, we continue to offer vital services remotely: Prescription co-pays, rental assistance, and other services are still available on a limited basis.
While Youth on the Move is not in session, our staff reaches out to students to ensure their well-being and to offer them snacks, access to Wifi and other resources. We continue to plan for our summer Freedom School program with the hope that we can meet by then. If not, we are working on alternative plans to help our children with their literacy needs.
While utility shut offs and evictions are on pause, they will not go away. People will fall even further behind in the months to come. We plan to be here to help people to stay in their homes. Likewise, children who already struggle with literacy will fall even further behind during this time away from the classroom. Our summer programming will be more vital than ever as we help children to improve their functional reading levels and to avoid summer reading loss.
Now, more than ever, we rely on the generous support of our community to help us continue with our mission. To support Emmaus House during this troubling time, please click here.
The New Georgia Project is a non-partisan civic engagement organization focused on registering, engaging, and advocating for the “New American Majority,” which includes citizens ages 18-29 who are African American, Latinx, and Asian American. They are helping to register people to vote at Emmaus House once a week on Wednesdays.
The New Georgia Project’s goal is to register all eligible unregistered citizens of color in Georgia by the end of the decade. The organization aims to meet new voters where they are (churches, college campuses, and their neighborhoods.) to share information about voter registration. For more information, please visit their website.
Meet Anna Grace Claunch, a student at Columbia Theological Seminary from Fairhope, Alabama, who is currently in her last year of seminary, en route to becoming an ordained minister in the Presbyterian (USA) Church. She is currently serving her chaplaincy internship at Emmaus House, through the Clinical Pastoral Education program at St. Luke's Training and Counseling Center (TACC).
How did you first learn about or come into contact with Emmaus House?
One of the requirements of ordination in the Presbyterian (USA) denomination is to complete a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). The purpose of CPE is to bring ministry students into supervised encounters with people in crisis. One of the CPE sites that TACC partners with is Emmaus House.
What made you want to get involved at Emmaus House?
In the past, I have interned with nonprofits that do work similar to that of Emmaus House, but from the moment I first walked into the Lokey Center, I knew there was something different about Emmaus House. What makes Emmaus House unique is that it offers an authentic sense of community and belonging. From the time you arrive until the time you leave, you are welcomed just as you are and treated with dignity and respect. You are seen as a human being, worthy of love and filled with purpose. That is why I chose to do my CPE at Emmaus House.
What do you do as a volunteer/in what areas do you work?
I primarily assist Sonya at the front desk. I enjoy meeting all the faces that walk through the doors and chatting with people as they wait for services. Sonya is an excellent teacher and I have learned so much from her about the various services offered not only at Emmaus House but throughout the greater Atlanta area.
How long have you been a volunteer?
I have been volunteering at Emmaus House for three weeks.
How often do you volunteer?
I volunteer 15 to 18 hours a week, and I will be at Emmaus House until I graduate from seminary this coming May.
What do you like most about volunteering at Emmaus House?
That is a hard question, but I would have to say that one of my favorite things at Emmaus House is the staff. They are all so patient and genuine, and they treat everyone with compassion and respect. It is truly a privilege to be surrounded by such great mentors.
Can you recall a favorite memory from your time as a volunteer? If so, please share here:
It was a slow day at Emmaus House, and I was working at the front desk. A woman came in and asked to use the computer to print off articles on powerful black women from the United States for her granddaughter's third-grade history project. She told me how her granddaughter was so excited about this project that she could hardly sleep the night before.
Because we were having a slow afternoon, I was able to sit beside the woman and listen as she not only told me about all of the women that have been an inspiration and strength to her own life, but also her own life story. When I finish my CPE unit, my parting gift to Emmaus House will be an ink cartridge and a packet of copy paper because I encouraged her to print off endless sources, articles, and pictures for her granddaughter.
Together, we stapled and hole-punched all the sheets of paper, and then put it all in a binder for her granddaughter. The woman could hardly wait for her granddaughter to get home from school so they could sit down together and read through the binder filled with pages of powerful black women who exhibited steadfast strength, resilience, and love in the midst of racism, oppression, and hatred.
Why is Emmaus House important?
Emmaus House is important because it offers a community and a safe haven for victims of severe income inequality. In addition to all the essential resources that Emmaus House provides, it is the voice of the people it serves. Because of its strong community relationships and intimate knowledge of the locality, Emmaus House understands the community's needs and the best ways to meet them.
What’s one thing you would want people to know about Emmaus House who have never heard of it?
Everyone's favorite volunteer should be Mary Louise, who helps with the food pantry on Thursday mornings. If you are not already aware of her baking skills, I suggest that you come to the Lokey Center on a Thursday morning because she loves to hand out cookies. In the three weeks that I have been at Emmaus House, I have had the best peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip pecan cookies I have ever tasted.
How Emmaus House Advisory Board Member Chris Lemons Is Cultivating an Appreciation of the Earth and Its Ability to Sustain Communities
As co-owner of Gratitude Botanical Farm, Chris Lemons knows what it takes to nurture growth. It requires care, consistency, thoughtfulness, patience, and warmth. In so many ways, one could also say that the same rules apply to our work helping our neighbors flourish here at Emmaus House, where Lemons has served as an advisory board member for the last two years.
Photo courtesy of Gratitude Botanical Farm.
The farm that Lemons runs with his childhood friend Desmond Baskerville grows fruits, seasonal vegetables, and flowers, but their work is about so much more than just the end harvest -- it’s about the seeds they’re sowing in the community. Along with busy daily operations of the functioning farm, Gratitude serves as a hub for educating, feeding, serving, and protecting the history of the people of Atlanta through the art of organic urban agriculture.
Lemons and Baskerville met in pre-Kindergarten; both grew up on the southside of Atlanta and retained their friendship through their high school years at Westlake, a science magnet. They were both part of the gifted programs and had the opportunity to work on several projects together, a precursor to their business partnership.
Co-running the business with his buddy has a kind of symbiotic harmony to it, Lemons said, in part because of his and Desmond’s complementary styles. “Desmond is definitely someone who is very friendly, outgoing, personable, and likes to smile a lot. Me, I have a little bit of an austere side,” Lemons said, adding with a laugh: “When we play good cop bad cop, he’s definitely the good cop.”
Lemons has deep family ties to Summerhill and Peoplestown, where he now lives in his great-great-grandfather’s house. “Being tied to this neighborhood is something that mattered for me and my family,” he said. “Just being good stewards in the community is something that was instilled in me from my time in Peoplestown.”
The number one thing he loves about this neighborhood is the people. “It’s really a people’s town. We have a diverse group of neighbors. We have people from all sorts of backgrounds and races in our communities,” he said. “Something I’ve always appreciated is that you can see someone from almost any walk of life.” He also appreciates the resilience he witnesses throughout the community.
“We have been inundated with changes and proposed changes,” Lemons said, adding that he admires that longstanding history and legacy of the area. “Just knowing that we’re a part of the original part of Atlanta, it’s something that means a lot to me. I appreciate the way that people have maintained their strength, especially in the face of displacement and gentrification.”
Even before he took on the role of advisory board member at Emmaus House, Lemons said he would volunteer to read at its Freedom Schools program in the summer and would participate in community cleanups and beautification projects nearby. He has led groups to plant flowers and taught youth about the wonders of the outdoors.
Lemons comes by it honestly. He’s a descendant of a family that has always grown things. “My interest in food I learned from my grandfather Howard Lee Lemons,” he said. “I just remember the freshness of the food and the pride that people have when they’re growing things.”
Being able to provide for yourself and your loved ones, when needed, was embedded in Lemons’ family ethos early on. His father was also a store manager at Kroger for many years, and so Lemons can remember learning about the complex and often inequitable way in which food gets distributed from zip code to zip code, which has instilled a profound appreciation for the food justice movement.
“People are wanting to come back to the earth and be more educated about where their food comes from, even learn how to produce food by themselves,” he said.
In addition to his endeavors on the farm, Lemons serves as President of Peoplestown Neighborhood Association and works full-time as a volunteer manager with Park Pride, so he and Des have to arrange their schedules carefully to make sure that they’re vigilant about any problems that might arise.
They also host farmers' markets in the summer, where you can drop by to pick up veggies like sweet potatoes or collard greens, delivered straight from the soil. Lemons said it has been essential for them to keep the “barriers for entry low” so that as many local farmers can participate as possible, and so that residents can have access to free food that’s also affordable.
Most of all, Lemons said he enjoys that his chosen vocation entails getting to share with others - like when he recently brought his grandmother turnip greens for Christmas to cook up for the whole family to enjoy. “If you taste the freshness of the food, it makes a world of difference. When you eat food that’s really fresh, it’s electric,” he said.
Gratitude Farms also hosts after school programs, offering the opportunity for kids to have “fun and enjoy the outdoors in a guided way.” One of Lemons’ favorite aspects of their work has been the process of introducing local youth to what it means to tend to a garden and help it flourish, providing instruction on planting, weeding, and everything in between.
“Watching kids take more ownership and responsibility over what’s in their community, and watching the smiles and the way they were happy to take the food home to their family, or cut flowers and take them to their mom – those were the kinds of things that meant a lot and were cool to see,” he said.
Want to get involved with Gratitude Botanical Farm? They host a volunteer day once a month but are also open to inquiries through social media about volunteering on other days. They’re also always interested in hearing from anyone who might want to volunteer other skills to help with the business - such as administrative assistance.
Editor’s note: Chances are, if you’ve been to the Lokey Center, you may have seen or spoken to Mark Clark, who Emmaus House Director Greg Cole says volunteers there almost every single day. Here’s our conversation with Mark, this month’s volunteer spotlight.
How did you first learn about or come into contact with Emmaus House?
I lived a block over from Emmaus House. I would constantly see people walking by and I wondered, “Where are they going?” and that’s when the old office was there. [The staff] taught me patience, compassion careful listening so I said, “This is my calling.”
What made you want to get involved at Emmaus House?
I liked what Father (Austin) Ford established to assist people. Civil rights. I love how he did the landscape, plants, trees, and he cared for people.
What do you do as a volunteer/in what areas do you work?
As a volunteer, I assist people from the neighborhood and walk-ins. Food, clothing, state IDs, furniture vouchers. If we can’t assist someone, we lead them to where they can get help.
How long have you been a volunteer?
Since the 1990s.
How often do you volunteer?
I volunteer as health permits.
What do you like most about volunteering at Emmaus House?
Watching the smiles on people’s faces. Seeing teens get their first ID.
Why is Emmaus House important?
Emmaus House is important to the community, helping with bills, food and people who come there from far and wide.
What’s one thing you would want people to know about Emmaus House who have never heard of it?
People should know Emmaus House is a great venue to point people in the right direction, offering unconditional support and respect.
How Bishop Frank Allan’s wood turning classes left a lasting impact
Left to right: Trebreh Turner, Josie Lawhorn, and Leon Gates demonstrate the wood turning technique they learned at Emmaus House.
Wood turning, as described by those who love it, sounds a bit like cloud gazing made tangible: both endeavors require an imagination powerful enough to transform a seemingly shapeless mass into something significant and recognizable.
This is certainly how former students of the late Bishop Frank Allan describe the joy of the craft they learned at Emmaus House through Work of Our Hands, an initiative founded almost two decades ago by Allan and his wife, Elizabeth.
Under Allan’s tutelage, a humble block of wood contained limitless possibilities, all of which could be coaxed out with a steady hand, a graceful technique, and some handy tools like lathes and band saws. These simple tree fibers were a blank canvas just awaiting inspiration.
Next month, along with the re-dedication of Ford Hall, Emmaus House will dedicate the Bishop Frank Allan Woodturning Studio, honoring Allan’s impact and legacy in the community.
Allan, who died on May 24 last year after a battle with illness, is remembered in the woodworking room as a thoughtful, straight-talking, steady presence who led many students to realize they could be true artists even when that notion may never have crossed their minds before.
One such student, Josie Lawhorn, picked up wood turning as one of Emmaus House’s “Senior Strollers,” after retiring from a career that included factory work where creativity wasn’t exactly a part of the daily routine. Lawhorn can vividly recall what it felt like to behold her first finished piece from the wood turning class; to realize how polished it was. “That was just exhilarating,” she said, her eyes growing soft, a smile tiptoeing across her face.
Lawhorn remembers how calm and approachable Allan was as a teacher, and how ardently he valued the craft. “So many beautiful things can come from that little piece of wood,” she said. “Just to hear him speak on it, you know, it just opened up a whole world.”
In 2001, having retired as eighth Bishop of the Diocese of Atlanta, Frank created Work of Our Hands with Elizabeth as a way to both support local folk artists and raise money for Emmaus House and The Friendship Center at Holy Comforter. The non-profit also offered arts and woodworking programs at Emmaus House for children, youth, and seniors.
Allan’s students created bowls, pens, and crosses, though this was presented as only the starting point. Should students want to keep going, Allan’s own history of craftwork suggested, they could produce all sorts of things.
In fact, in a 2013 interview, Allan amusingly described how he once crafted a wooden sailboat in his basement, only to realize that there was no way to get it out of the basement (to test its sea-worthiness, say) without knocking some walls down first.
For Leon Gates, wood turning at Emmaus House served a deeply therapeutic role. As taught by Allan, Gates said, this craft became a way of temporarily alleviating the troubles of the world. A Vietnam veteran and recipient of the Purple Heart, Gates found that working at the lathe allowed him to calmly and methodically focus on what was happening in the present, temporarily pushing aside the insistent worry and anguish of war’s trauma that threatened to flood his mind at any moment.
Longing to sustain this opportunity for mental quiet, Gates found himself returning to the Emmaus House woodworking studio “every chance I could get.”
About his friend Allan, with whom he became close over the years, Gates remembers instances of tremendous generosity.
“If he could do anything for you, he would do it. If there was anything you wanted, you’d just tell him, and he would get it for you. No questions asked, he would just give,” Gates said.
Now, as an arts program volunteer, Gates said he tries to apply the same patience – and strict adherence to safety rules (particularly the use of goggles and a face mask, as wood chips have a tendency to fly in all directions) — that Allan embodied.
The process of learning and mastering something, of truly owning it and being able to show it to others, is where the deepest reward lies for Gates. He hopes that the kids he teaches feel a similar sense of pride and accomplishment in their work.
One of Gates’ students is 21-year-old Trebreh Turner, part of a new generation here poised to witness interest in wood turning reignite through the new studio. Turner started coming by Emmaus House back when she was just six years old and said she can remember being captivated right away while watching the wood spin and shapeshift.
When she finally turned 11, the required minimum age to start participating in the wood turning classes, she dove right in.
“You do have to be patient,” she said, echoing Gates. “At first, you’re just like, well, I just want to make it right and you're rushing and then you wind up messing up and then you do it again and you're like, ‘Okay, I'm going be a little bit more patient.'”
Thankfully, Turner said, the encouraging and supportive atmosphere of the class lends itself well to the old adage, “try, try again,” a requirement for anyone looking to get good. Looking ahead, Turner is excited to help others pursue artistic outlets that they may not have considered before.
Lawhorn is also eager to carry the Frank Allan legacy forward. “Education is no good if you keep it within yourself,” she said.
The dedication event will take place on February 16 from 3-5 p.m.