CCES

Tears of Joy: Ingram Carpenter's Senior Thesis Makes a Huge Difference in the Community

Usually, the tears precede our students' senior thesis presentations, as they struggle to meet their deadlines and attend to every last detail.

But at her emotional presentation on April 24, Ingram Carpenter could not stem her tears, and by the time her audience rose to give her a standing ovation, most were brushing tears from their cheeks as they clapped.

As Ingram's tears began to flow, a member of the John Wesley Church and her younger brother
jumped up to offer handkerchiefs.

The cause of all this emotion? In a word, love.

After her brother Chase had visited the John Wesley United Methodist Church Breakfast Kitchen for a required ninth grade community service project last year , and her mother, Tudda, had visited to transport some of our students there, Ingram decided she would visit too. She found that she loved going downtown to the church early in the morning to serve breakfast to the homeless and the needy who came for the hot breakfasts of eggs, toast, grits and jelly. She continued to volunteer long after her sophomore "requirement" had been fulfilled, out of her growing love for the church volunteers and the clients she had come to know by chatting with them as she served.

So when a DHEC inspection put a stop to the serving of hot breakfasts in the historic building because of code violations, she was as outraged as any members of the largely African-American congregation. The program resorted to serving coffee and breakfast bars, and attendance dropped precipitously.

As the price quotes came in for the needed renovations, the church did not know where they would find the money to complete the project. They prayed.

The answer to their prayers came from the most unlikeliest of places: from a 17-year-old student at Christ Church Episcopal School.

In order to fulfill her Senior Thesis requirement for graduation, Ingram embarked on an ambitious campaign to raise $50,000 for the project. She wrote to family and friends, foundations and businesses. Over the months, as letters poured into her mailbox at home, enclosing checks ranging from $25 to $15,000, the high school senior collected more than $61,000: enough to complete the renovations, purchase cookware and other needed furnishings, and stock the kitchen's pantry for several months. She also received many touching letters of encouragement.

Members of the John Wesley United Church, including Rev. James Friday and Bobby Burch, the staff member at CCES who first introduced our students to the opportunity to serve at the breakfast kitchen, were on hand to attend Ingram's presentation, as were many of the donors to her project.

Fulfilling the research component of her thesis, which was mentored by English Dept. Chair Barbara Carter, Ingram opened her presentation with a discussion of the history of the John Wesley United Methodist Church, the evolution of the Breakfast Kitchen program, and some research about DHEC and its functions.

But it was when she began to talk about the people connected with the kitchen, especially the volunteers whom she talked about one by one with their photos on the screen, that her academic composure began to crumble and the tears began to flow.

"This is the most important thing I've ever done in my life," she sobbed. Afterwards, her mother acknowledged that her project was "a life-changing event."

With a quote from her favorite book, Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Ingram explained her motivation for embarking on this effort:

"I'm here to tell you that there are no random acts. That we are all connected. That you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind."

As she presented her huge check to Rev. Friday and Mr. Burch, the connection among everyone in the room was intensely felt. First, members of the John Wesley Church, then her family members and donors in the audience rose to give her an ovation.

Even the cameraman from WYFF-TV, there to record the story, applauded.

And there was hardly a dry eye among the many who had come to celebrate Ingram Carpenter's extraordinary achievement.