Mary & John Hodge
Community shapes your town, and this community needs to grow. Our kids need to be exposed to more culture, we need enrichment as a whole. We have to take our children to Tuscaloosa and Birmingham to get outstanding cultural enrichment. A lot of kids here haven't even seen a play production.
When our church was being rebuilt we brought in people from all over the world. They helped bring the community together because every Friday or Saturday night we would share cultures. We had Jewish people show us what type of worship service they conduct, their eating styles, and their beliefs. We are strict Baptists: we shared with them our culture and our rituals. They attended worship service with us on Sundays and Wednesday nights. We put on skits centered around community and different backgrounds, and invited the entire community to come and share with us.
Just coming together as a body, as a community, is necessary. Until we come together as a group, regardless of race, creed, color, or nationality, we are never going to foster the kind of atmosphere that would be conducive to drawing outsiders in to make a home. You've got to have something more than a job that would tie a person to the community.
John Hodge
Math teacher, Francis Marian High School
President, St. Paul’s District Christian Leadership School
Mary Hodge
Resource teacher, Greensboro West Elementary
President, LABORS
Greensboro, Alabama
Outsidein. A Community Space for Hale County.
outsidein: a community space for hale county. build space with your voice.
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