Students of Atlanta Public Schools return next Tuesday, August 1 and Emmaus House has set an ambitious goal: to provide backpacks and school supplies for 1,000 area students.

WE NEED YOUR DONATIONS BY JULY 31 TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

Please help us equip these students with tools they need for success, by dropping off your donation at Emmaus House M–F, between 9–3pm. Distribution will take place during National Night Out at Four Corners Park in Peoplestown.

If you need to arrange a drop off after-hours or if you have any questions, please contact Rakia Reeves at 404-525-5948, ext. 31 or at rakiareeves@emmaushouse.org.

Kindergarten School Supply List

• Box #2 Pencils
• Box 24 Crayons
• Pink Eraser
• Pkg. Washable Felt Markers
• 2 Glue Sticks
• Bottle of School Glue
• Box of Tissues
• Bottle of Hand Sanitizer
• Pair of Blunt Tip Scissors
• Pencil Box
• 3 Plastic Pocket Folders with Brads
• 2 Wide-Ruled Spiral Bound Notebooks
• 2 Primary Composition Notebooks
• New Small Sized Backpack

Elementary School Supply List

• Box #2 Pencils
• Box 24 Crayons
• Pink Eraser
• Pkg. Washable Felt Markers
• 2 Glue Sticks
• Bottle of School Glue
• Box of Tissues
• Bottle of Hand Sanitizer
• Pair of Blunt Tip Scissors
• Pencil Case
• 2 Wide-Ruled Spiral Bound Notebook
• 3 Pocket Folders
• Box Colored Pencils
• 2 Pkg Wide Ruled Loose Leaf Paper
• Box Blue Pens
• Ruler
• 2 Composition Notebooks
• New Medium Sized Backpack

Middle School Supply List

• Box #2 Pencils
• 2 Glue Sticks
• Bottle of School Glue
• Pink Eraser
• White Eraser
• Pkg. Washable Felt Markers
• Pair of Scissors
• Pencil Case
• 10 Pocket Folders
• 2 Pkg. Lined Paper
• Pkg. Plain Paper
• 4 Lined Notebooks
• Box Blue Pens
• Box Red Pens
• Ruler
• Box Colored Pencils
• (2) 1" Binders
• 8 Subject Dividers
• Scientific Calculator
• Pencil Sharpener
• Box Highlighters (3ct)
• Agenda Book/Student Planner
• Stapler
• Staple Remover
• New Medium – Large Sized Backpac

High School Supply List

• Box #2 Pencils
• Mechanical Pencils/ Lead
• 2 Glue Sticks
• Bottle of School Glue
• Pink Eraser
• White Eraser
• Pkg. Washable Felt Markers
• Pair of Scissors
• Pencil Case
• 10 Pocket Folders
• 2 Pkg. Lined Paper
• Pkg. Plain Paper
• 4 Lined Notebooks
• Box Blue Pens
• Box Red Pens
• Ruler
• Box Colored Pencils
• (2) 1" Binders
• 8 Subject Dividers
• Scientific Calculator
• Pencil Sharpener
• Box Highlighters (3ct)
• Agenda Book/Student Planner
• Stapler
• Staple Remover
• Bottle Correction Fluid
• Large Sized Backpack

The Road Episcopal Service Corps of Atlanta is now accepting applications for the 2017-2018 service year. The Road offers young adults the opportunity to make connections between faith and social change, commit to community and simplicity, and grow in capacity for compassionate, courageous, and imaginative leadership. Road fellows work 32 hours per week in nonprofits addressing issues around homelessness, unemployment, education, immigration, addiction, refugee resettlement, the environment, and much more. One day a week is devoted to spiritual discernment and reflection, leadership development, and community action in the neighborhoods of urban Atlanta.

Qualifications: College graduate, commitment to social justice and working with marginalized populations.

Qualities and skills: Compassion, flexibility, open-mindedness, and communication.

Road fellows receive a monthly stipend. In addition to room and board, public transportation to and from service sites is also provided at no cost to the Road fellow. The Road fellow will live in apartments at Emmaus House during their 11-month fellowship.

Applications are available here and will be accepted on a rolling basis until June 30, 2017.

Visit us at www.theroadatl.org to learn more about The Road Episcopal Service Corps.

Applications are now available for the summer Freedom School at Emmaus House. The camp is a Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools® program, open to completed kindergarten through fifth-grade scholars and is free for all eligible campers. The camp offers six weeks of reading enrichment, art, field trips, recreation, breakfast, lunch and snacks. Freedom School takes place June 12-July 21, Monday through Friday, from 8 am to 3 pm and is located at Emmaus House, 1017 Hank Aaron Drive, SW, Atlanta, GA 30315. Parents or guardians are required to attend mandatory parent meetings each week. Applications are available at D.H. Stanton Elementary School and Emmaus House. The application deadline is April 21.

The Emmaus House Freedom Schoolparticipates in the Summer Food Service Program. Meals will be provided to all eligible children free of charge. Children who are part of households that receive foods stamps, or benefits under the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) are automatically eligible to receive free meals.

Acceptance and participation requirements for the program and all activities are the same for all regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability, and there will be no discrimination in the course of the meal service. Meals will be provided at Emmaus House, Mondays through Fridays. Breakfast will be served at 8-8:30 am, snacks at 10:30-10:45 am and lunch 12-1 pm.

Mindfulness, as a means of stress reduction, has been around for many years. Recently, mindfulness practices have entered the mainstream, providing opportunities for implementation in a variety of settings. Knowing this, in 2016, Emmaus House began to incorporate mindfulness practices into its program. We did this in response to parents who said that dealing with stress is one of the issues with which they need the most help. In partnership with Dr. Andy Roach, Associate Director at the Center for Leadership in Disability at Georgia State University we taught simple mindfulness practices to those who attended our Great Start for Parents program. The project was funded by Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning,

This pilot program was so successful that we decided to move further with mindfulness as an intentional practice. In 2017, with a grant from Trinity Church, Wall Street, to support social-emotional development, we plan to incorporate mindfulness practices into some of our other programs: Youth on the Move, the Road Episcopal Service Corp, and our Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools® program.

Susan Kaiser Greenland, mindfulness educator, defines mindfulness as “the capacity to be alert and open to life experience as it occurs in a non-reactive, resilient and compassionate way.” We at Emmaus House are very excited about this latest development in our journey to becoming a more impactful, transformative presence in Peoplestown and beyond.

To facilitate this work, Emmaus House engaged with Mindfulness Without Borders, a leading provider of best practices and evidenced-based programs on secular mindfulness and social-emotional intelligence to youth, educators, health and corporate professionals in communities around the world. On Monday, February 6, 11 members of the Emmaus House staff, along with nine people from Georgia State University, took part in the first of three days of training to become certified facilitators of the Mindfulness Ambassador Council (MAC). The MAC program “offers youth a forum to meet face to face and learn about constructive ways for addressing personal, social and community challenges.”

Stay tuned for updates as we participate in the remaining two days of training and begin to practice greater mindfulness as a staff and with our neighbors in Peoplestown whom we serve.

The Road Episcopal Service Corps began in 2011 as a conversation with a diverse and energetic group of people about building a dynamic young adult formation and leadership program in the Diocese of Atlanta. Youth on the Move started in 2003 to provide middle and high school students with opportunities that will prepare them for success as adults. In 2016, Emmaus House had the privilege of taking on and offering leadership to these two programs. We are very excited about the ways in which these two programs enrich our work at Emmaus House.

Ryan Bigg is a second-year fellow of The Road and works with Youth on the Move. He offers his reflections here.

“Hi, my name is Ryan Bigg. A lot of you might know me or have seen me around at Emmaus House the last year and a half or so. I am a second-year fellow for The Road Episcopal Service Corps and have spent both of those years on site at Emmaus House.

During this time, I have been a catch-all resource for Emmaus House. I have worked at the Lokey Center, the Chapel, Freedom Schools® summer program and the Parent Power literacy program. More recently, my focus has been with the Youth on the Move after school program, which is the newest Emmaus House program.

One of the reasons I am such a catch-all resource and always seem to be around is that The Road Episcopal Service Corp is now a program of Emmaus House, which hosts, offers staff support for and provides housing to the ten fellows who take part each year.

So, I live and work full time here on the campus. By design, the fellows live in community with Peoplestown neighbors. I am an example of how well this can work. I have loved living here, working here and being among the people of Peoplestown.

This experience has been life-altering because it has changed my perspective on how the world works. The relationships I have built here are more fruitful than those I have previously experienced. I think this speaks to the value of the community of Peoplestown. Even though there are not as many resources in this area, the richness of joy and love that I feel here outdoes that of any other place I have experienced.

These characteristics have been clear to me recently in my work with the Youth on the Move program. The goals of Youth on the Move are to educate, enrich and empower middle and high school students in the Peoplestown area through various activities and experiences. In my time being with these students, I have seen growth in each of them, and I have enjoyed the richness of life with them.

One of the activities that we offer is college/career workshops that show the youth some of the possibilities that are available after high school. A few months ago, my mom and sister, both nurses at Emory, held a workshop about being a nurse.

The workshop was very successful. They created four different interactive stations to show the students different aspects of nursing. At the Look and Listen station, they took each other’s blood pressure and listened to heartbeats with a stethoscope. At the Hand Hygiene station, they learned how to put on sterile gloves. They practiced putting bandages on each other at the First-Aid station. Finally, at the Healthy Habits station, they discussed how essential daily exercise and eating healthy are for our bodies. The program concluded with a Having Fun exercise where my mom showed them a favorite dance of hers. In turn, they taught her a favorite dance of theirs. That was the highlight of the day!

This work at Emmaus House has been crucial for my personal development and growth. Instead of trying to describe how it changed my life, I want to encourage everyone to find a way to get involved. Being able to bring my family into the Youth on the Move programs and intersect my two worlds for a moment brought so much life into the space. I would love to see more of that around here. After all, that is what Emmaus House and The Road is about – meeting someone on a path, intersecting and interacting with them and having your life and theirs be different afterwards.”

Sunday, September 27th 3pm - 6pm at Emmaus House. 

Walk The Road is an opportunity for youth and youth leaders to learn, serve, and walk with our neighbors in Peoplestown as we explore the community’s voice in the re-development process after the Atlanta Braves leave Turner Field.

Please join us for a day of panel discussions, service projects, a guided tour of our neighborhood, and a community cookout. The theme of this year's event will be moving forward as a community as our neighborhood experiences change following the Braves' relocation. 

The schedule for the day is as follows:

Registration ($5 or 5 cans of food): 3:00 – 3:15 pm

Panel Discussions: 3:15 & 4:45 pm

Walk the neighborhood to Turner Field: 4:00 pm

Service projects: 3:15 pm

Community cookout: 5:30 pm

RSVP via our facebook page.

Thanks to you, the sound of singing, chanting, cheering, laughing, and yes, even sometimes crying has filled the Emmaus House campus this summer. It is the sound of hope, the sound of a new generation of leaders. It sounds like God singing.

“Teaching children may be the highest way to seek God. It is, however, also the most daunting way, in the sense of the greatest responsibility.”

— Gabriele Mistral, in Thoughts on Teaching

This year, as an evolution of our Camp Summer Hope, we launched a Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools® site. Each day, 70 children and youth representing 40 neighborhood families experienced an integrated reading curriculum proven to help school-aged children maintain or improve their reading skills over the summer.

“My girls come home reciting the chants. They’re motivated. It makes it easier to get them to pick up a book,” 

— Shelbia, mother of two Freedom Schools® Scholars

Your support can make a life-changing difference for people like Shelbia and her children.

For seven summer weeks, we have the opportunity to affect educational achievement for our neighborhood children and youth. But what about the other 45 weeks of the year? What happens once children get home can make or break the academic advances they achieve during the day.

Emmaus House is committed to partnering with parents like Shelbia who are doing the hard work of raising their children while overcoming significant economic barriers. That's why this summer Emmaus House also launched the Peoplestown Family Initiative. This two-generations, case management approach is designed to accompany families as they strive to create stable home environments for their children.

Through your support of these new programs, you help to alleviate some of the stressors facing our neighborhood parents, providing them the tools to be the kind of parents they deeply desire to be. By connecting with both children and their parents, we address barriers and threats to stability before they become crises that could result in homelessness or worse.

Please consider making a gift this summer to support families in Peoplestown.

Your donation makes the Freedom Schools® summer program and the Peoplestown Family Initiative possible. Only with your support do families receive these vital programs.

PLEASE CONSIDER MAKING A DONATION TODAY.

You also have the opportunity to become a Peoplestown Partner, our new monthly giving program. As a special incentive, a generous supporter of Emmaus House has offered to give $150 for every person who becomes a Peoplestown Partner – up to $7,500! Please see the box below for more information on this exciting new program.

We are so grateful for your support. You make the work of Emmaus House happen.

Sincerely,

Joseph Mole, LMSW

Executive Director

Shelbia Blackwell (featured in the article) and Kaye Montgomery, one of our Servant Leader Interns at the Freedom Schools® program

A Successful Sign Up Day for Families

On Monday, despite unseasonably cold weather, 225 families lined up to receive their vouchers for a turkey and all the fixings to make a Thanksgiving dinner at home.  The remaining 125 vouchers will go to other residents who could not make it on Monday, including at least fifty seniors.  After the line had slowed, Ann Fowler, who manages the program, said, “Everyone deserves to have special moments in their lives.  Thanksgiving symbolizes family and it’s a wonderful way to kick off the holiday season for those struggling to put food on the table.”

Meet Jerrica Holliman.

Jerrica has been a resident of Peoplestown for 17 years. Jerrica has three adult children, all of whom have jobs, and she regularly receives groceries from the food pantry. This will be her second year as a participant in the Thanksgiving at Home program at Emmaus House. 

What does this Thanksgiving program mean to you?

Jerrica:  It means a lot.  They help us for real in so many ways nobody would even imagine.

They put a smile on my face. I’m so happy that we have this in our community.  People come together around Emmaus House.

Fundraising Continues

Love abounds. And because of everyone's love-inspired generosity, so do turkeys!

We are pleased to announce, with heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has contributed to our Thanksgiving At Home Fundraiser, that as of today, we are 77 percent funded in our goal of providing Thanksgiving meals for over 350 families in the Peoplestown community!

With 24 days left, we are more than hopeful of reaching 100 percent. But we still need your help.

Please don't think, "Oh great!  All is well. They'll reach their goal, I need not bother."  We still have a ways to go.  A mere $10 means a family celebrates their lives together in their own home around a Thanksgiving Day feast.  And don’t forget the leftovers they’ll get to enjoy - what’s better than Thanksgiving leftovers?

So, if you haven't contributed, please help us quickly reach our goal. And please urge just one friend or family member to do the same... let's get these birds 'in hand' and share our bounty with many less fortunate than ourselves.

How to Contribute

Our fundraiser is coordinated through IndieGoGo. You can visit our campaign page here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/thanksgiving-turkeys-for-families

Please note that your receipt will say that the donation went to “The Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta.”  However, please be assured that 100% of your contribution will come to Emmaus House to purchase Thanksgiving turkeys.

There you can find out more about our Thanksgiving At Home Program, as well as Emmaus House’s general mission and the Peoplestown community that we serve.  Please visit our campaign site to discover how you can spread a little love this holiday season.

Lastly, a huge thank you to all who have already contributed to the campaign.  And a huge shout out to the staff and volunteers who are lovingly making this effort happen.  Blessings to all.

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