Today we’d like to introduce you to Seth Henderson.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Seth. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My wife, Lacey and I left our community almost three years ago to move our family to Dallas to be part of starting New Horizons of North Texas. To be honest, we stumbled upon a job posting that I originally sent to her to pursue. She was a high school English teacher and had reached a point where she wanted more out of her educational career. My background is working as a minister and for nearly twelve years, had sensed a calling to some sort of community development service. We found that in New Horizons.
This work that we lead is personal for me. I grew up in small-town Arkansas in a great family. But we faced incredible financial challenges that were really difficult for me and ultimately, this motivated me to do well in school and realize the power of education. It was really my faith though that helped me reconcile a lot of things about my past and develop a real desire to share the power of hope that I had found.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Is there ever really a smooth road in life? I mean, I can’t imagine a purposeful life being completely smooth. The past three years have definitely been filled with lots of great moments though. We have worked with some incredible kids, who are full of so much potential. We believe in the intrinsic value inside of them, even when they don’t see it themselves and we see our role as simply helping to draw that out of them through consistent relationships. It’s been rewarding to see many of them begin to recognize their own self-value and agency, grow in self-confidence, improve their reading, and discover the power of faith in their lives. Yet, we’ve also had to struggle through growing pains along the way as well – a shortage of volunteers, not enough funding, mistakes, staff turnover, seeing kids walk away – things that make you doubt everything you’re doing at times. We’re learning to trust God with all those things ultimately outside of our control and focus our energy on key activities that we can more directly influence.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about New Horizons of North Texas – what should we know?
New Horizons of North Texas is a Christian nonprofit working passionately to empower at-risk kids to reach their full potential through literacy tutoring, mentoring, and faith-building by telling a different story. In short, we fuse faith and education together in the context of afterschool learning communities to create environments for mentoring to take place.
The need in our city for this type of work can be overwhelming at times, so we’ve decided to adopt the “Do for One” mentality – how do we do for one child, one school, one neighborhood, what we wish we could for them all. Currently, we serve students from two elementary schools with plans to add a middle school program in Fall 2018 and expand our impact each year serving youth in the Bryan Adams Feeder Pattern in East Dallas.
Every child is provided over 250 hours of mentoring each year through their high school graduation. The work we do is highly relational, very individualized, and long-term. It’s not always flashy, but it’s consistent; we are confident that this long-term investment will pay off as kids grow in confidence, read on grade level, graduate high school with a plan for their future, and become change agents in their own communities. We find a lot of power in our 3-pronged approach, and what we see every day is a really beautiful picture of what we think heaven will look like – different ages, socioeconomic classes, races, and backgrounds coming together in mutually beneficial relationships because our kids are worth it.
We have a lot for which to be grateful, and we’ve come a long way in three short years. I’m most proud of our commitment to each child as an individual. We do operate within the context of a large group, but every day there is so much time given to one-on-one conversations, and I’m proud of our team for not losing sight of this commitment.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
So many people consistently invest in New Horizons it’s unbelievable. I first have to start with the kids of New Horizons. I am proud of our students like Ethan, who is being raised by a single mom, and came into our program reading two years behind his current grade level. He faced so many challenges, but through his consistent dedication to growing in his reading ability, he was able to gain a year and half of reading progress during the eight months that he was with us. Our students are the biggest ones who deserve credit – they commit and make choices every day to work hard to succeed and fulfill their potential. I’m so proud of them.
Secondly, our staff and volunteer mentors and our supporting partners are some of the most dedicated people I know. Each day, they serve because they believe in our kids, and they make our work possible. Our army of advocates shows up each day to love and mentor our students in a way that is inspiring and allows us to make the level of impact we work towards.
Finally, there are two couples in particular that I need to mention – Bob and Ellen Nichols and Tom and Nancy Cooper. Bob and Ellen began New Horizons going door to door 16 years ago in Southwest Florida and have seen it grow to now serving over 500 students through their kids and youth programs. They are hallmarks of faithfulness and humility. Locally, Tom and Nancy Cooper founded New Horizons of North Texas and have invested so much to bring this mission to fruition in our community. Their support is truly creating significant impact in their hometown and they deserve so much credit.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.newhorizonsofntx.org
- Email: info@newhorizonsofntx.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newhorizonsofntx
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/newhorizonsofntx
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