St. George’s, SERVE901 build bunkhouse for students who serve
Alton Stova l l looked i n amazement on a recent Thursday at the clea red Sunday school rooms in the basement of McLean Baptist Church where he could be bunking this summer, studying Memphis up close from a living, thriving service lab that now also stands on the power of collaboration.
The St. George’s/SERVE901 Bunkhouse opens June 1 in the whitewashed Midtown church at McLean and Jackson. It represents a meeting of the minds between St. George’s Independent School and John Carroll, the whirlwind idea man who created the marketing brand CHOOSE901.
“I can imagine one moment cutting the ribbon and in the next, kids will be packed and ready to move in,” said Ross Peters, head of schools at St. George’s.
Bunkhouse is no misnomer. With $250,000 from St. George’s pa rents Beth a nd David Skudder, work crews are adding men’s and women’s sleepi ng quarters, adjacent shower rooms, central air, plus amenities in an all-purpose room that soon will become the breakfast/gathering area for hundreds of students.
“We’re buildi ng sleeping space for 100 because that’s the size of St. George’s (grade levels),” said Carroll, who was leading a construction tour a couple weeks ago. “Realistically, we’ll have space for 115 or more.”
Fifteen to 20 weeks a year, SERVE901 will fill the bunks with college kids coming to Memphis for spring and fall work camps. The rest of the year, St. George’s will be in residence, r unning its own city-inspired service projects or offering classes or sleep-ins for students in its upper school.
“It’s almost a fourth campus,” said Stovall, who besides helping clean up the church basement, is among the nucleus of students at St. George’s in on the planning.
“We have a program called MLK Day On,” he said. “We go out in the Memphis community and work. One thing we’re talking about is extending that over many days. Because we have an established base, we can spend the night.”
St. George has a tentative “Amplify Memphis” on the drawing board, a three-week course for upperclassmen on Memphis history that would involve a service project.
St. George’s, which by design has campuses in Mem- phis, Collier vi l le a nd Germantown, will have a presence between Rhodes College and Crosstown and a chance to work with SERVE901, “which is doing so much to attract people to Memphis and back to Memphis,” Peters said.
“We want our students learning how to live that life of contribution now. But it is more than that. We want them to be learning not just to deliver service but to live in a community in a way that contributes to it.”
The vision in part is that when St. George’s students are in college, they will have a reason to invite their friends to service projects here and be able to offer free lodging. The larger idea is that the experience could be so meaningful, both will decide make their lives in Memphis.
It’s no pipe dream to Carroll, who’s seen it happen countless times with college students he’s brought to Memphis over a half-dozen years for service projects.
“We have great amenities they can experience — the National Civil Rights Museum, the zoo, the Redbirds, the Grizzlies, the local food scene, the Greenline. They love it. They love the city.”
McLean Baptist is owned by Living Hope, a congregation in Piperton, Tennessee, which also offers programming in the church. It was looking for tenants but didn’t have the money to build showers and bunk facilities Carroll needed for SERVE901.
“Living Hope told us, ‘If you are willing to put the showers in, you can use this space as much as you want,’ ” Carroll said.
That’s where the Skudders come in. They donated the money because they wanted to expand St. George’s service potential but also because they believe in SERVE901.
Ca r rol l’s 5 01(c)(3), Cit y Leadership, negotiated a 10 - year lease on 7,000 square feet of basement classrooms for $1. The deal gives St. George’s and SERVE901 access to the chapel, courtyard and sanctuary, now a gymnasium and the worship space for two congregations that hold services there, including McLean Baptist.
But it also has an industrial kitchen and plenty of parking, perks that would cost both tenants if they had to build them. But until Rhodes College bought Evergreen Presbyterian, there was no deal, Carroll says pointing to the new $400,000 sprinkler system that changed the trajectory.
“Everg reen’s day school moved here, and when they made the investment to put the after-school program here, they paid for the sprinkler system. That immediately allowed us to have the conversation,” he said.
Carroll, delighted with the con nect ion s , d id n’t k now how much they meant to the neighborhood until he spoke last weekend to the VollintineEvergreen Community Association.
“I’d been talking about five minutes and they gave me a sta nding ovation. They a re so excited to have this in the neighborhood instead of having it torn down for a Walgreens or some decaying old building. They’re going to have this incredibly active community center right in the hub of their neighborhood.”