LUBBOCK – Wayland Baptist University’s Lubbock campus put the biblical principle of sharing to meet a need into action recently with the delivery of 600 WBU-branded water bottles to Centennial Elementary School.
“We have been a partner school for Centennial Elementary for many years, so we are always looking for ways we can work with them,” said Dr. Judy Jarratt, Executive Director and Dean of the Lubbock campus. “We’ve provided school supplies and things like that in the past. They bring fifth grade students over here on fieldtrips to see the campus.”
But Chris Sanders, a new fourth grade teacher at Centennial, did not know the history between Wayland and the neighboring elementary school. Seeing a need in his classroom, he approached administrators at the university campus less than a mile away about providing water bottles for his students.
Understanding that it wasn’t just one little boy who needed to eat when Jesus fed the 5,000, Jarratt and Bobby McCloud, Director of Development for the Wayland’s Lubbock campus put the biblical principle into action. They accepted Sanders’ humble request, thanked him for it and multiplied it.
“If the students in his class needed water bottles, then we knew the other students in our partner school probably did too,” Jarratt said. “We were already looking for something we could do for Centennial this year.”
On Aug. 30, Wayland distributed 600 blue water bottles with the Wayland logo to students, approximately 20 times the amount Sanders had requested for his class.
The partnership between Wayland and Centennial goes far beyond water bottles and school supplies. The university’s Lubbock campus is designated to serve as a place of safe haven for Centennial students if the elementary school ever needs to be evacuated. Also, there are family connections between the school and university. Some of Wayland’s adult students are parents of students attending the elementary school.
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