Hope Club at Saint Thomas’ Episcopal School

 Sara Olshefski, Katie Flato, Olivia Schwartz, Olivia Lane, Stephanie Adames, Emily Ware and Yuki Huang serve lunch to the men at Open Door Mission.

Out of the many clubs at Saint Thomas’ Episcopal School, The Hope Club is one of the most popular. This club is a community service oriented club that reaches out into the Houston community about once a month. Any student is able to join the club and participate in the many opportunities available for outreach. 

Service projects occur both on campus and throughout Houston. Involvement with The Nehemiah Center, which provides support for at-risk children, has become a major initiative for the Hope Club. Other projects include the addition of recycling bins in every classroom and in the hallways of the Saint Thomas’ Episcopal School campus.

Annually, the Hope Cub also organizes an undertaking that would make Santa himself jealous. Through the international relief organization, Samaritan’s Purse, they mobilize our high schoolers to pack shoe box sized containers full of gifts to be shipped to underdeveloped locations all over the world through the Operation Christmas Child program. 

On Saturday, Jan. 9, seven students dedicated their morning to The Open Door Mission. Open Door Mission is an organization for men recovering from alcohol and drug abuse. One of the mission’s goals is to help these men get back on their feet and get a job. The men have three months in which they are given a room, three meals a day and counseling. They work on their spiritual along with their physical self. 

Our students assisted with food preparation and cooking at Open Door Mission. Afterward, they had the opportunity to hand out meals to the men.

“It was a great experience getting to work side by side with my friends while serving my community,” said freshman Katie Flato. As the students handed out meals, they received tremendous gratitude and appreciation from the residents. Open Door Mission truly has the ability to change lives for the better, and you see this happening every minute you are with these men.

“It was a unique opportunity to be able to help out people from all walks of life in my own city,” said freshman Emily Ware. All the students had a great time cooking and meeting these men in recovery.

The next project for the Hope Club will be helping stock the Houston Food Bank. This is another opportunity to help nourish the hungry in our city.