SALISBURY — A partnership formed between First Baptist Church of Salisbury and Henderson Independent High School which is paying dividends for the students, staff and campus. 

Sheila Prevatte is the missions council chair at First Baptist Church. Prevatte indicated that the idea for the partnership started when the church was deciding on a project for its participation with North Carolina Baptist State Convention’s ServeNC missions blitz earlier this year.

“We realized that Henderson is unique in many ways, and that they do not have a traditional PTO group to support them and to help with special projects,” Prevatte said in an email. “Also, we wanted to show the faculty, staff, and students there that we care about them and we wanted to find ways to help them feel seen and recognized.”

After meeting with Principal Alexis Cowan and Assistant Principal Mallory Whitley, the group from First Baptist went to the campus for a prayer walk back in August. A few days later, as teachers were preparing for the beginning of the school year, the missions group bussed teachers over to the church for breakfast and a time of fellowship. 

“They fed our staff breakfast one morning, which was very nice,” Whitley said. “They gave little gift bags to our staff as we were coming in with lots of fun teacher goodies in it, like pens and postage, you know, all the things that teachers like to have.

“What started as a week of mission work that they were doing with the school ended up being much more in our conversation about what all they could possibly do. They just seem to get really excited about wanting to support our schools. So it grew very quickly.”

And grow it did. Later that month, 23 volunteers from the church went to Henderson with a long list of tasks. 

They replaced old tangled and rusted chain nets on the four basketball goals with fresh new cloth nets. Lots of shrubs and trees were trimmed and shaped up. The group pressure washed several picnic tables and later water coated them. They picked up debris and pulled weeds in several beds with an eye for invasive poison plants like poison ivy and oak, and they provided fresh, new landscaping for a circle in the visitor parking area, which was previously overgrown with large plants and weeds. That was cleared and replaced with colorful, low maintenance landscaping plants that allow much better visibility. 

“It was exciting to see folks come together on a Sunday afternoon, in the heat, to work together to show our partners at Henderson that we love and care about them,” Prevatte said. 

The group did not stop at beautification efforts. 

“They also have donated some gift cards for our staff and students to put into a drawing for one of the things that we’re doing here,” Whitley said. “They’ve also agreed to support our school store. When students get to a certain behavior level with our new point system, this year, they get to shop at our school store with their Eagle bucks.”

Prevatte mentioned that they were organizing ongoing projects, including the collection of hygiene items and school supplies for students in need at Henderson.

“They have brought kits for our female students and our male students to help with their hygiene, and also some little fun things in there, within that,” Whitley said. 

Prevatte added that they have other plans in the works to partner with our Henderson friends throughout the school year, to continue to show that “they are loved and cared for not only by God, but by their neighbors.”

That support has been transformational at Henderson. 

“It’s just been great,” Whitley said. “We hoped and prayed to be able to do more for our staff and our students, and we just can’t do it out of our pocket all the time. So to have someone in our community reach out to us and say, Hey, we want to help you, and we’re willing to do just about anything. It’s been uplifting for our staff.

“It’s just really helped to boost our staff morale this year, to have the special treats and our students, too. I mean, everyone enjoyed that ice cream social. They plan to bring some mentors and maybe some help with tutors as well into our school to help some of our students. There are some former educators at that church that also want to get in the building and help some of our students. So I think it’s good for our staff and our students to see that the community cares about us.”

Whitley said the experience has emboldened their theme this year at Henderson as well. 

“Our theme this year at our school is to reimagine and a lot of what we’re trying to do this year is for not only for our students to reimagine themselves when they come here, but for us to reimagine ourselves as a school and for the community to reimagine who we are,” Whitley said. 

It’s also about dispelling notions surrounding the students.

“A lot of people say, we are where all the bad kids go, but we’re much, much more than that, and we do much, much more for our students,” Whitley said. “We have great kids here. A lot of them, you know, just made one mistake, but they’re amazing kids, and we want the community to be able to see that. So by gaining community partners like First Baptist, we’re able to show those things, not only to the people in this building who already know, but to really help ourselves get outside the building so that the community can see what we’re doing and provide the needed support.”