July 11th, 2205 | Pastor Rachel Williams

Dear Friends,  

In one of my all time favorite movies, You’ve Got Mail, Tom Hank’s character, Joe Fox, sends a message to Meg Ryan’s Kathleen Kelly saying, “Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” Nora Ephron sure knew how to turn a phrase.

Now, I’m no Nora Ephron, so I hope this doesn’t come as RomCom sacrilege, but I want to offer an adaptation of that line for our own context: “Don’t you love Fernandina Beach in the summer? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send a whole bouquet of dry erase markers to Memorial if I knew their name and address.”

That’s right, we could make our own quote just to talk about the upcoming Teacher’s Fair on August 3^rd in Maxwell Hall. And here’s the good news! You DO have our address! And we have an Amazon Wishlist, found HERE, that you can use to help source our supplies! (Order through Amazon and have them delivered directly to Memorial!) If you haven’t already donated, and would like to do so, please consider making a supply purchase between now and August 2^nd. You can have those supplies sent directly to the Partin Center, or you can drop them in one of the bins in the worship space.

Our teachers work incredibly hard to (did you see all Nassau County Schools had an “A” rating for last year?!), and they should not have to fund school supplies out of their own pockets. This is a way that we can show our support for the people who spend day in and day out caring for our community’s children.  

Another way you can show your support is by helping out at our partner school, Yulee Primary, on July 25^th from 8AM to noon.  A team from Memorial will be there to help freshen up campus before teachers, staff, and students arrive for the new school year.

With school starting back in exactly a month, let’s help our teachers, students, and parents prepare for a successful start to the new school year!  

With love and peace,  

Pastor Rachel