FBC Enterprise fills in child-care gaps for schools affected by tornado

Every weekday, Joyce Howell helps children heal from the trauma of the tornado that struck Enterprise March 1 and changed everything — even their school routine.
  
After Hillcrest Elementary School was damaged beyond being usable, Hillcrest’s students began sharing Holly Hill Elementary School’s facility with its students. And since there wasn’t enough space for all of the students to meet at the same time, half-day classes were instituted, with Holly Hill holding classes in the morning and Hillcrest in the afternoon.
  
So then came the question, where would those students go during the half-day period they were not at the Holly Hill facility?
  
Enter Howell and about 65 other members of First Baptist Church, Enterprise, in Coffee Baptist Association.
  
“Because the children are having school on a half-day schedule, a lot of working parents would not have child care available,” Howell said.
  
So the group of volunteers, including stay-at-home mothers, senior adults and retired teachers, offered the Enterprise City school board a half day’s worth of activities for each set of students — about 70 from Holly Hill and 98 from Hillcrest — when not in class.
  
Bob Phares, assistant superintendent with Enterprise City Schools, called the church’s HollyCrest School Care Program “a hidden gem” for the community.
  
“It’s a tremendous help,” he said. “If First Baptist had not come to our rescue, we would notice a void.
  
“To have our children being nurtured and cared for in the midst of a church is very healthy,” Phares added. “It keeps them actively engaged and stimulated in a warm, Christian environment.”
  
While at First, Enterprise, students participate in music, art and physical education, as well as listen to stories, watch movies and enjoy refreshments. The church has partnered with First United Methodist Church in Enterprise, which allows students to use its gymnasium. 
  
First, Enterprise, has also been assisted by music teams from First Baptist Church, Dothan, in Columbia Baptist Association that help two days each week.
  
Lance Hogan, pastor of First, Enterprise, believes the program is providing more than day care through the security it offers a community that is still shaken.
  
“There’s an extreme emotional loss as well as physical loss, and many of the children that we are caring for were in the tornado,” he said. “Some of these have firsthand experience, so they have a lot of little traumas.”
  
Pointing out how much life in the community has been disrupted, church member Trish Clark said some students stay at the church until 6 p.m. because their parents are teachers at Enterprise High School, which was also damaged by the tornado. These students need to stay longer while high school classes are taught in the afternoon at Enterprise-Ozark Community College, she said.
  
Clark also noted that a lot of the program’s students have never been exposed to a church. 
  
“I think we’re showing them that God is still here, He does love them and that it’s going to be a better year next year,” she said.
  
Hogan agreed. “We want to make sure there’s a Christian witness here and the kids identify with a church,” he said. “We’re not using it as an opportunity to promote First Baptist but all churches.”
  
The program at First, Enterprise, will run through May 25, a few days short of the last day of school May 31. However, Phares noted that students mainly report to school that week to pick up report cards.
  
Next year, Hillcrest students will attend classes at the Enterprise Early Education Center. Phares said that facility, which is 97 percent complete, was being built with plans to open it this fall for the area’s 500 kindergarten students but that has been put on hold. He added that it may be several years before Hillcrest is rebuilt.