Soma Austin

As part of our efforts at bringing restoration in the city of Austin, Sherry Birk and I met up with Alissa Magrum and Katherine Houck from Communities in Schools at Dawson Elementary today. This was our first meeting to discuss conducting an extreme makeover of their counseling room, or should I say, counseling rooms.

The Communities in Schools program is a great program that seeks to help kids stay in school. You can read more about our Communities in Schools partnership here. Today, we got to hear about CIS's work at Dawson Elementary and their vision for the makeover of their space. The space has not been touched much in 18 years and is in need of repairs, updates and a more nurturing, comforting environment. They serve 100 kids each year in their space and have 5-8 staff using the space on a regular basis. They have been great stewards of their space and the finances they have, and now is a great opportunity for us to bless them and the children of Dawson Elementary. Sherry and I were received VERY warmly by the staff and we look forward to working with Katherine, Rachel, Ethan and Kris, among others.

I can already see encouraged staffers in their restored spaces, kids with big eyes while they check out the new space and new students who walk into the new rooms in the fall. I am excited and I pray that you are also!!

Here is a picture of one of the rooms:

The second space is used for 3 Americorp staff, two full time staff and a therapeutic playroom. The space is pretty large and will take a lot of labor, donations and some of our own cash money to make it happen. This is a great opportunity to bless our city, our children and a non-profit that is working to improve the lives of our children.

Community Colloboration

Our hope in this project is to invite participation from multiple people, organizations and businesses. We will be inviting some other churches to help out, the Dawson neighborhood association and some businesses. In you are interested in donating or serving in this project, please email us at .

We will be posting updates to this project as we have them. This is going to be cool, so keep an eye out and pray how you might be able to assist.

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