Thanks to the efforts of a local woman, students at Whittier High School are being reminded how important they are.
Patty Abney was previously a women’s leader at the First United Methodist Church Celebration Center in Sedalia, teaching a women’s Bible study for several years. A few years ago the group was doing a Bible study about Jonah, which asked for the participants to conduct a project that would make a difference in the community.
After discussing several ideas, Abney randomly found the idea to help Whittier students during the church’s Women at the Well dinner.
“I had a table I hosted and I sold every seat including my own, so I moved to a table where a teacher was sitting from Whittier,” Abney said. “She started sharing all these things about the students at Whittier, how they were couch-surfing and different needs of the school and the kids there.”
Abney and the group decided to provide a one-time graduation gift to each student that May.
“Then we got these amazing thank-you cards back from them, they were very grateful,” Abney recalled. “One read, ‘You don’t know how much this means to me because this is all I got for graduation.’ It was just such a simple thing, water, candy, shampoos, soaps, it was nothing. I brought them back to the ladies and we decided to do more.”
From there, the generosity to Whittier continued with a Thanksgiving dinner for the students hosted at the Celebration Center, along with providing scarves, hats and gloves. Then someone suggested a giving tree about four years ago to provide a Christmas gift to each Whittier student. This spring the students went to a Royals game, the first game for many students.
Abney and the church’s efforts are impacting roughly 65 students each year – 50 day students and 15 night students – according to Whittier Assistant Director B.J. Curry.
While the night students get Christmas gifts from the church, they tend to miss out on the daytime activities, so Abney often helps coordinate various organizations in bringing dinner for those students, Curry added.
“Just the show of the importance that it is to our kids and to know that there are people outside of our school district that know how important they are is a big impact on them,” Curry said of Abney’s efforts. “A lot of our kids are from homes that are either a single family or no family home, which makes it tough on everyone, so any extra support they can have and any time they can understand they are an important part of society it helps them out a lot.”
The gifts and meals are donated to help the students, but they aren’t the only ones impacted by the gesture – Abney said Whittier has become like family.
“The kids are so grateful and so thankful and every time that you just interact with them, they’re so polite and just go out of their way to say thank you – over and over and over again they will say ‘thank you so much for what you do for us here at Whittier,’” Abney said. “I just have a heart for them to see them succeed in life and then to hear the stories, the kids that come back. You know that they’ve made it, that they’re going to be successful.”
In addition to volunteering with Whittier, Abney is involved with Seeds of Hope at Bethel Family Church, which reaches out to people in the community who need help with clothing, kitchen utensils and food.
She’s giving in her personal life as well. Her children are now grown, but she used to be a stay-at-home mom and recently worked for Dr. Barbara Knight. She quit her job to help take care of her dad and father-in-law, who both got sick at the same time.
In everything she does though, she’s always thinking of and thanking others.
“I couldn’t do any of this without the support of others,” Abney said. “Without my husband’s support and our friends, our church, the Bible study ladies, and the community at large.”
Abney said she and the Celebration Center plan to continue helping Whittier, plus adding in a few new projects, such as painting some classrooms and working with Gina Shaw at Specialty Sports to get student-designed Whittier T-shirts. Katy Park and Sedalia Christian churches donated to help keep shirt costs low.
She said “one of the most joyful times” is getting to deliver the Christmas presents each year, plus getting to know each student.
“One year (an after-school Whittier group) made an art piece for Hearts for Haiti at our church,” Abney said. “I ran into two of the kids who had made part of the project for the auction and they were bidding on the art piece so they could take it back and display it at the school. Those are the kinds of kids that are there, they have this heart. Everything just means so much for them. Things that we take for granted on a day-to-day basis, really touch them and mean a lot to them.”
