Impact Mentoring Update: Toya Spears
By Tyler Lemmons
As the Impact Mentoring program enters its 11th year, there are many things that hold our program steady while we also experience positive shifts and changes to our little but lively community. Although each mentoring year we are sad to say goodbye to adults and kids that can no longer participate in our program for various reasons, we are also excited to welcome new mentors and kids. I enjoy the mixing of energies, from relaxed pairs that are in their 5th year together to the anxious and excited energy of a pair meeting for the first time. As I reflect over this fall start, I want to highlight one of our new mentors and her story at impact.
Toya Spears first contact with Impact was when her young children attended VBS. She herself had no contact with Impact until she decided to attend the Impact Family Night, which is an annual event for VBS parents at the end of every summer. Dennis Jaeger picked her up for a Family Night sixteen years ago and on the way their bus overheated and broke down. Toya mentioned that she was a bus driver, and despite that inauspicous beginning she agreed to be a bus driver for Impact! From that point, Toya began driving for the Children’s Bible Classes on Thursday nights and all summer long for VBS. As the youth team got to know Toya, they trusted her to recommend other bus drivers, and over the years Toya has recruited many reliable and trusted drivers.
Through the years, however, she became more than just a driver. As her kids grew up, she began to make deeper relationships with the ministers at Impact and the children she had been picking up for years and years. In recent years she has begun attending Impact services regularly, and last year for the first time she volunteered to teach a children’s Thursday night bible class.
As Caroline Morales and I began planning for this upcoming mentoring year, Toya was on our mentoring ‘wishlist’. When I first approached her she was an immediate all-in and enthusiastic yes! And that is Toya’s energy in a nutshell. Toya exudes positivity and can usually be found serving or helping someone. When we were able to add hot meals to this year’s program Toya was quick to volunteer to serve in the kitchen. When I discussed this story with her, she wanted to make sure everyone knew that driving for Impact is her dream job! She said Impact has taken care of her kids and now her grandkids year after year and she is thrilled to serve in any way she can. She loves teaching on Thursdays and has loved getting to become a mentor this year, and we have absolutely loved having her and her servant energy!
