Brookstone Builds... SERVICE.
Young people amaze me. It’s as though they can’t conceive of the seemingly impossible, so they accomplish just that. And, Brookstone has a tradition of nurturing and encouraging this wide-eyed naïveté of a young person’s potential. In fact, as is Brookstone’s reputation, they expect it in changing our world. Nothing could make me more proud of my alma mater than knowing that since I started the Habitat for Humanity Campus Chapter in 1999, Brookstone students have since built 10 houses for families in need. Ten?! I vividly remember my voice cracking as I pitched the crazy idea of building and raising funds for a house during club sign up day. I crossed my fingers to get a handful of people to sign up to make this seemingly impossible goal a reality. My mouth dropped when I was handed a completely full sign up sheet with more than 100 names on it.
Nicole Lewis Bernard ‘00
Brookstone had nurtured our natural desire to help others and empowered us with the belief that we could make a difference– a bunch of teenagers raising funds and building a house seemed entirely possible to us as well as important. That year, Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat came to speak to our school and his words and his story inspired. At that time, Brookstone’s campus chapter was the largest in the nation and now Brookstone has it’s own story in it’s role in the community.
I am fully convinced that without instilling the value of service, we fall short of reaching our full potential and Brookstone understood that fully in its support of Key Club, insistence that students be involved in the community through service and introducing even its youngest students to service projects. I remember sitting in Nan and Sam Pate’s living room listening to a guest speaker from Habitat describe their vision. Our teachers shared these values and created opportunities for us. Service gives us a perspective, it teaches us leadership, it humbles. Service connects us to each other and makes us more human. “Be human,” These were the last parting words of Pat Khazaeli as she sent us off during her commencement speech. I have remembered that advice above all others and found it to be a sizable challenge in today’s world. My high school sweetheart, Tommy Bernard (‘00, pictured above with Nicole at a fundraising event), and I fell in love working on Habitat fundraising at Brookstone. Fourteen years and three children later we still have a passion for its mission and still stand on Brookstone’s values that serving is a natural responsibility and privilege. In some ways, our understanding of service has continued to develop as we now teach it to our own children. Our daughter and I started a fundraiser called “Little Hands Bakery” in which preschoolers and parents bake cookies for pre-ordered packages for Duke University students during exam week from which all proceeds go to Habitat. Our motto is “even the littlest hands can make a difference”–a lesson I learned in school. Service has become a way to bond as a family and a couple and to instill in our own children values so close to our hearts. Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat once told me, “There’s something contagious about being bold.” I’d say Brookstone students have got that one down.
BROOKSTONE SCHOOL ANNUAL REPORT OF GIVING • 2011-2012
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