Key Points:
• Sandy Springs Mission celebrates 25 years assisting at-risk community.
• The success of its focus on education is shown with a 95 percent graduation rate.
Former students of the Sandy Springs Mission joined in its 25th anniversary luncheon on Oct. 30 to share how it helped them succeed in school and in life.
The Sandy Springs Mission was created by a group of Mount Vernon Baptist Church members to help the Latino community with challenges like learning English and finding jobs. the focus has shifted to education. Its success shows in a 95 percent high school graduation rate.
Allesandra Hernandez and Valeria Lobo credit the Sandy Springs Mission for what they’ve accomplished in their lives. Both came to the United States with parents who didn’t speak English, and they had to learn the language themselves to help translate for them.
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Hernandez got held back in school for a year because she did not have an adequate grasp of English. But in sixth grade, she was introduced to the Sandy Springs Mission through a friend, though she worried about being judged.
“But then I arrived at the Sandy Springs Mission, and I saw that there were a lot of students like me who didn’t speak English as well, and so then we made a lot of friends,” Hernandez said.
She learned enough to succeed in dual enrollment during high school. That led to her acceptance and attendance at Oglethorpe University, where she is a junior studying business administration.
Valeria Lobo came with her family from Costa Rica to the area 23 years ago when she was five. As they tried to figure out life in the United States, the family connected with the Sandy Springs Mission. Each day after school when they got to the mission, homework was completed first.
“We couldn’t go outside to play until we all did our homework. So, we got a lot of coaching through that, and then we would have some food,” Lobo said.
Lobo’s family moved to Woodstock from Sandy Springs when she was in the fifth grade, ending her time at the Sandy Springs Mission. She attributes graduating from high school with honors from high school and her work with people who have special needs to what she learned through the mission.
After a three-month mission trip to the Dominican Republic, Lobo got a job at a day program for adults with special needs. Three years later she accepted a job to lead First Baptist Woodstock’s disability ministry. She works with more than 120 special-needs students, aged three to 64 years old. This work led to opportunities that included visits to Kurdistan and the Middle East to help a missionary partner.
Felix Lora took the position of director of the Sandy Springs Mission a year after it formed. He remembered heading to Roswell Road from East Cobb on his way to his job parking cars.
“I also began to notice that there were more immigrants moving into Sunday Springs, just south of 285, and I would pray silently, saying, ‘Lord, is anybody doing any work with these people in this community?,’ not knowing that a few years later that I would be part of that group that would be doing something.”
Lora said the mission started with 12 students and in its 25th year, the mission impacts 425 students annually. Since the start, 5,035 families have been served with the help of 4,000 volunteers. The mission first partnered with High Point Elementary School and Ridgeview Middle School, which now has expanded to six Fulton County schools and two local colleges.
Lora said the mission’s success can only be achieved through the staff, volunteers, and the mission board of directors.
“The Lord has sent most of our staff, I’ve no doubt, to work with us. But we are not enough, unless the Lord sent you, too. So thank you for being part of the mission,” Lora said to the volunteers and other supporters at the luncheon.
Programs offered by the Sandy Springs Mission include:
- After-school academic enrichment;
- Language support programs;
- High school advancement program;
- Dual-enrollment college classes;
- Summer camps;
- Mission sports and recreation.
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