Transcript: Troy Childress, High School Guidance Counselor (The Art of Volunteering)

The following is a transcription of The Art of Volunteering Episode 14: Troy Childress, High School Guidance Counselor.

Stormy Bell (00:00): Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of The Art of Volunteering. Today, I have a friend that I’ve known [for] about 18, 19 years. As a longtime friend of ours, he mentored my children when they were in youth programming at our church, and he’s just a wonderful resource. This is Troy Childress. He is currently a school counselor at GREEN Upstate High School. That’s in North Carolina?

Troy Childress (00:30): South Carolina.

Stormy Bell (00:31): South Carolina! Oh, I didn’t write that down.

Troy Childress (00:34): That’s okay! It’s one of the Carolinas, you’re close enough.

Stormy Bell (00:36): Oh, close enough! A little bit about Troy. After serving the Air Force, he began his career in youth ministries where he spent over 20 years, both in paid and volunteering. From there, his calling continued into education and he now serves the students and their families as a school counselor. Welcome Troy, and thank you for being my guest.

Troy Childress (00:58): My pleasure. My pleasure.

Stormy Bell (01:01): Today we’re having a discussion about community service and volunteering and why it is so important to high school students as they’re looking for their post-secondary education. Whether it’s university, a two year college, or even trade schools, they look at what are they doing with their time and how are they spending it? There’s a lot of emphasis put on it, and I’ll ask you a little bit about that, but can you just share from your experience, why is this so important?

Troy Childress (01:35): I think from my experience, from the military all the way into youth ministry, even now an education it’s always been an opportunity to give back. From a young airman in the Air Force, we were always encouraged to get in the community. From the Air Force, they use it almost like a recruitment technique or whatever it is where you’re out there in your schools. I was a firefighter, so we had our firefighting programs that we did with in the school. We went around with the students. We talked about fire prevention. So when we’re in uniform and we’re out there meeting and interacting with the community, they saw us in a different light, I guess you could say, than just being a normal military guy. We were able to interact on a personal level. From the military side of things, that was our interaction just to- of giving back. 

In the church world, you said this earlier, churches wouldn’t survive without volunteers. From my experience, I was even volunteering when I was in the military or going back doing church camps. You know, taking a week of vacation just to do a week of camp with students. For me, that part was just to fulfill my passion of working with students. I enjoyed it. I get into paid ministry now, and I even volunteered when I was in youth ministry with FCA. Fellowship for Christian Athletes. Not paid to do that. I did that outside of church world and then, as you know, I found a way to infuse both of ’em at times.

Troy Childress (03:09): I think from volunteering from me as an adult it’s, we have our job. We have our nine to five if you will. Seven to three, or sometimes we work 12 hour shifts. There’s more to life than just the day in, day out grind. If I can give back from a personal perspective and help someone else in need, most of the times we’re volunteering whether it’s at a soup kitchen or whether it’s at a camp or things like that. There are people that need to fill those roles, and a lot of those organizations rely on the volunteering side of things. That’s for me, giving back to the community if you will. There’s the, it’s not selfish, but it’s always unique with how you feel. So you get a sense of gratification and satisfaction of knowing that I helped others. 

There’s a lot of gratitude that people show. I used to work at Soup Kitchen, we would volunteer. We take the kids a lot of times to different places like that, and people just are thankful for people that want to help others. It feels good. It feels good to know that people recognize that and appreciate that. You know, even on the youth side of things when I volunteered as an adult before I became paid staff, those relationships that you build it with students and you get to walk with them in their lives you do that over a course of years. You develop those relationships. I have friends on Facebook that were students that I volunteered with as well as the paid staff kind of thing. You walk with them in life. So there’s a lot of that sense of satisfaction from that personal side of things. 

Troy Childress (04:48): Now as a school counselor and I’m talking to students about their need to get involved, I don’t always spend as much on the college application side of things. I try to hit them on the personal side first. Yeah, we’re doing a college application and they wanna see your hours that you’re volunteering, but I try to reel them in a little bit on that personal piece. Go volunteer at a soup kitchen. That’s the easy one. We use that always as a reference, just because there’s always that. You got your Thanksgiving timeframe, you’ve got your Christmas timeframe, you got some other times of the year where they need volunteers. It’s an easy one to go on a Saturday. 

There are a lot of other avenues that we give them as far as volunteering, Boys & Girls Club, things like that. I try to hit home on that personal level of once they start doing it, they start feeling better about it, they enjoy it, and they get that sense of satisfaction. I feel like if I just dangled a carrot of, ‘hey, you need this for a college application’, a student’s gonna go, they’re gonna do the hour here or there, and they’re gonna check the box and move on not really have the right heart or mindset when they’re volunteering. The win-win for a lot of our students is colleges like to see that. They wanna see that you’re volunteering. It hits on a different level, which I’ll talk about in a second. If I can dangle the carrot of the personal sense of satisfaction and gratification you’re gonna get as well as you’re gonna do that, and you’re gonna meet something that colleges wanna see, it’s a win-win for the students as far as that’s concerned.

Stormy Bell (06:28): Okay. I like that. You’ve answered a lot of my questions in that.

Troy Childress (06:36): Sorry, I went ahead on that one.

Stormy Bell (06:37): No, that’s really good. I love it. Students are in high school so they have school work, they have extracurricular activities, they might have a job. Volunteering plays into that. How do you work with students to balance all that and find a happy medium? Because we don’t want them stressed out and like, I have to do this. I would think from a college point of view, they want a well-rounded student. So how do you guide them? How do you talk to that?

Troy Childress (07:11): Well, I had a freshman come in my office today and it was pretty interesting. She sent me an email saying, ‘hey, can you meet about my credits?’ I pulled her up. I had known her name and face. This is my first year at GREEN so I’m still getting to know my students, but I realized that she’s a freshman and I was intrigued by this conversation. A freshman coming in, already concerned about credits. It was a really good conversation because we got to talk a little bit more about credits. She was asking about colleges and talking about the holistic approach that colleges are looking at while volunteering came up. A lot of our clubs, like National Honors Society, Beta Club, they have volunteering as a requirement for their club. The idea again is, okay, so we’re gonna be a part of a club where our club is service oriented so we need to be serving within the community as part of being a part of this club. 

We got to talk a little bit about that. She’s very smart. Not to say that kids who volunteer have to be smart, but she already got a 4.0 GPA as a freshman. Because she started taking classes at seventh grade. That’s unweighted as opposed to weighted. She’s a really bright student talking about AP classes this year and those kind of things. So she was doing the checkbox. Okay, well I know I need to do this. I know I need to do this. I know I need to do this. Volunteering was one of the things that she added to it. She started talking about getting a job and working 8 to 10 hours a week next year because she’ll be 15. 

Troy Childresss (08:33): As she started listing off these things- in fact when she was talking, she didn’t even breathe. She was kind of like, I’m talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, talking. Then, oh, and then she finally got her breath and I said, ‘that’s a lot, isn’t it?’ She smiled and she says, ‘yeah, it is!’ I said, ‘so let’s take a step back for a second. Stop checking the box and let’s look at things that we’re passionate about because you can become overwhelmed.’ I even asked her, ‘what’s the priority on those, on this schedule?’ She took a second to think about it and she kind of, ‘oh, my grades!’

I said ‘exactly’. I said, ‘so we can put a lot on our plate but we need to make sure that school comes first and we find a way to balance all that.’ I know we put so much pressure, or students, or someone in the mix is putting pressure on students to stack the box on all the things that they’re doing. Take all the APs you can take, take all the honors classes you can take, get a part-time job, play sports, be involved in extracurricular activities, [and] volunteer. Oh maybe you can help out around the neighborhood! We just start checking all these things and students become overwhelmed. I have them step back and look at, so what are we passionate about?

Troy Childress (09:58): Don’t do things just to check the box and say well, I was a part of this club or I did that. Granted here again, we’re looking at the holistic side of things, but if a college, and this is just from my interaction with admissions reps and those kind of things. If you’re involved with one or two clubs, you have extracurricular activities and you’re volunteering on this and they all kind of fit your passion and what your, your interest is, that’s far more impactful in your college application than having 20,000 things that you’re doing and your list is so long, but it’s an hour here, 30 minutes there. As opposed to, I volunteer at Boys & Girls Club because I wanna be a teacher and I’m passionate about working with students. So I spend five hours a week volunteering at the Boys & Girls Club. 

Just having them prioritize those things so that they don’t become overwhelmed. Because it’s very easy to do that. There’s some students who need to work and I’ve had a lot of reps talk about [how] they can’t always get the volunteer hours in because they need to work and they understand that part of it, and that’s a priority as well. But still trying to find a way to get involved and interact. If they can only volunteer one hour a week, one hour every two weeks, but it’s intentional in what they’re doing, that stands out far more than anything else. That’s based off of just the conversations we’ve had with reps and students and just making sure that they understand the why in what they’re doing.

Stormy Bell (11:31): I like that. I wish I had that guidance when I was in school.

Troy Childress (11:36): You and me both. You and me both.

Stormy Bell (11:40): Do you see the students who decide to be with the Boys and Girls Club, because they wanna be a teacher and they’re aligning their time so everything’s aligning up with their passions and their direction in life. Do you see the benefits of that beyond high school, beyond college? Do you think they take something from that, that carries with them? That spirit of giving back, like continuing that? Do you see that?

Troy Childress (12:08): I do, and I’ll use myself as an example. In high school we had an opportunity with church camp. As a high school student, I could go back and volunteer for the younger age groups at camp, or even in church you could volunteer in children’s church or those kind of things. Even at Pascack Bible Church (PBC), we had a lot of our students who went to camp as a volunteer of the weeks that they had younger kids. That’s what started my whole journey into what I’m doing now as far as working with students. I didn’t realize that. At 16 years old, for me, it was a fun week at camp working with students. I enjoyed it. I had friends that went to camp with me. It was fun to me and I enjoyed that whole time that I was doing that.

I did it at, you know, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21. I’m still in the military going back and here I am, you know, three or four years later now stepping into a paid role as a youth pastor because of that journey that I took as a teenager working with students. For a lot of kids who don’t know what they wanna do, they don’t, I mean, and at 16, 17, 18, at 25 a lot of people still don’t know what they want to do so if they’re volunteering it gives them that touch point of is this something I’m passionate about or not? Many people tend to move forward with that and do it for years to come because they enjoy it. That doesn’t mean that if someone volunteers with the Boys and Girls Club that they’re gonna work with children the rest of their life, but they might continue as an adult volunteering because of that passion and what they’ve enjoyed doing and that drives their giving side of things, if you will.

Stormy Bell (14:00): Ok. Just speaking, like not knowing what they wanna do and volunteering for that, that is one one thing they recommend for volunteers, even someone wanting to change jobs later on in life or if some of our young professionals want to build their resume. They will look for volunteer opportunities in like, they might be in finance, but they need to have fundraising experience. The actual earning of it. They volunteer so they gain that real world experience that helps them for that next step in their career whatever that is. I hear people who may have lost their job during the pandemic. They found ways to volunteer to keep their skills up, to give them purpose. There’s so many things that come out of it. To instill that at a high school or even middle high age, it’s so important. If you actually have even younger than that, families who you use the example of the soup kitchen, they go as a family. They’re learning at a very young age that we give back. We do this just because that’s who we are. It’s such an example for the future. 

I do see what you were saying about aligning in their passions that colleges want- They’re looking at that volunteering possibly from a point of what value is this student? What are they gonna bring to the life of the campus? How do they look at the world? How do they get involved? We don’t necessarily want someone who’s so worn out because they’ve done everything. We’d rather have someone a little more focused, a little more open to even diversity, trying different things. If you volunteered with the Paralympics or something like that where you’ve opened yourself up to something beyond what you might see at home or even in your school.

Troy Childress (16:08): Right, right. So I’ll even use your two boys as an example. I mean, they’re both in careers now that they were volunteering in some of those aspects in high school. I mean I know Zander was helping out in youth ministry with a lot of our media stuff and look at what they’re doing. Those doors open up far beyond where we think they’re gonna open up as far as that’s concerned, which is really neat to see.

Stormy Bell (16:37): Absolutely. Absolutely. Alright, let me ask you hopefully an easy question. Can you share a story of an impactful volunteer experience? Something maybe you had as a volunteer or something you witnessed from one of your students during their experience? Has anything come to mind?

Troy Childress (17:01): Yes. We took a group to Cincinnati many years ago from New Jersey. It was a mix of a conference as well as a mission trip, if you will. We were going within the local community and doing different things. Part of it was the Boys & Girls Club. We were there hanging out with kids and doing a bible study with them and just spending time with them. Playing games and those kind of things. We had I think three or four groups. We had different tasks that we did throughout the week. The students would either be at the Boys & Girls Club or they would be doing some work. Doing some construction stuff or doing some food stuff at the food pantry so they kind of rotated around.

You would think that just the volunteering with the kids would be the most impactful one. Some of the students surprised me. ‘Man, I had fun working with my hands and getting dirty and building the fence and doing those kind of things’. I think it was the food bank that we were working at. From that side of it, the kids talked about giving bags of food to people who were in need. At the end of that week, we talk about how the week was, and I get the students to kind of share back. There was not one student that week that didn’t have anything impactful to say.

Troy Childress (18:41): I remember this trip very, very distinctly because it was my first trip after Russell was born so I was not in the right, right state of mind. In fact, I was kind of a little disconnected. We get to the end of the week and everybody’s teary eyed, everybody, you know is just, they were touched by what we did that week. Those students all stepped out of their comfort zone and learned how important it’s to step out of the normal life that we live and give back a little bit. So that’s one of the ones, I see pictures sometimes on Facebook. It just kind of sparks a little piece of my heart of reminding me of that trip, which is really cool.

Stormy Bell (19:27): That’s awesome. Was that the trip that had potatoes? Something they had to- was there a trip that they pick potatoes or sorted potatoes or something? Was that that one?

Troy Childress (19:37): Maybe.

Stormy Bell (19:38): Maybe? I heard stories about something like that. I could be on the wrong trip.

Troy Childress (19:43): No I think that was it.

Stormy Bell (19:47): Very good. Alright. I have another question for you. Can you share a blooper, something that didn’t go right, but either you learned from it or the student learned from it? Just from a volunteer experience, like, just anything.

Troy Childress (20:04): So I’m gonna use myself as an example on this one. The other one was about the kids. This one was about me. Moved down to South Carolina and years in youth ministry I decide okay, I’m gonna jump back in and volunteer at a church. We go on a weekend retreat and here I am, Mr. Youth Pastor, you know, I got years of experience and I’m great and I know what I’m doing. It was the most humbling experience for myself where I was the outcast. Adults didn’t speak to me, students didn’t speak to me. I mean, I was the new guy. It was disheartening at times, but very discouraging as well. I think for me it was a huge learning experience. In fact, I called up an old buddy of mine from PBC, I’m not gonna name his name, but just to say, ‘hey, was I ever like this?’ You know, just cause I’ve always been intentional, especially with volunteers about making sure they get engaged and here I am the first time in a while where I’m the volunteer in youth ministry as opposed to the youth pastor.

There was no engagement, there was no interaction, there was no trying to help out as far as being the new guy. For me, while on one hand it was a blow to my ego of like, oh my gosh I’m not cool anymore. I mean, I kind of thinking about like, gosh, I’m the old guy or whatever. I mean, I wasn’t the oldest guy there, but that’s fine. I’m not bitter about that, I promise you. I think it was the learning experience for me, of just reminding me of how intentional we need to be. If I’m in a role where I have volunteers in or new people coming in or those kind of things, a reminder of make sure they’re engaged. Make sure if you’re the leader of leading this, whatever the group is or whatever is happening, make sure that everybody feels accepted, feels like they’re part of that group.

Troy Childress (22:21): It took a couple of nights of me nurturing my ego to kind of step back and learn from that experience. There are gonna be times where, and even now, times where I’m bringing people into the fold of, of doing different events. Just making sure that everybody, everybody feels wanted, feels like they’re needed and they’re a part of the group. Everybody has a role. Everybody has a role within whatever we’re doing in the volunteer side of things or, you know, in the organization. Just making sure that everybody feels heard and that they’re a part of it. That was a big learning curve for me but I’m better now because of it, because I think I have a newer sense of understanding of what it’s like to be on the other side.

Stormy Bell (23:10): Thank you for sharing that. That’s very personal. I appreciate that.

Troy Childress (23:14): It’s tough.

Stormy Bell (23:16): I know my listeners are gonna appreciate that too, because sometimes we learn more from our bloopers than we do when things go right.

Troy Childress (23:25): I appreciate the blooper side of things. Because sometimes we say failures and people they lock into that negative mindset but I’ve learned more from the mistakes I’ve made or the times that things didn’t go the way that I thought they were gonna go. This was one of those big examples of, it didn’t go the way I thought it was gonna go and I came back I think more impactful for me on that side of it than had it gone where I was a new guy and everybody loved me. I don’t think I would’ve learned as much.

Stormy Bell (23:56): I gotcha. Well, again thank you for sharing that. Okay here’s the part of the interview where I invite you to love on your school GREEN Upstate or your volunteering at your church, or just your students and their volunteer path. Just love on them.

Troy Childress (24:19): Cool. GREEN Upstate is a charter school in Mauldin, at Simpsonville Mauldin area. Our area code is Simpsonville but we live in Mauldin, which is the upstate of South Carolina. The Greenville area for those that aren’t familiar with South Carolina, but it’s the upstate side of things. The school had a middle school and a high school and they were combined together in the same building and we split off. So we are a new school in the sense of we’re our own school now. We’ve added more students in than we had before. We’re very small, just under 260 students. Which is new for me because the former school I worked at my caseload was 330 as a school counselor. Now the entire school is lower than my caseload before. It’s a small school.

Stepping into this school, it’s been some growing pains, but at the same time it’s really cool to see our students come together. I’m the new counselor. I have seniors that were working through transcripts and college applications and those kind of things. The majority of the students have been very receptive. There’s some cool energy from the school about the excitement of where we’re going. I’m excited about a lot of new things.

Troy Childress (25:56): From the school side of things, I think our journey is just beginning, but the future is very bright on that end of it. We’ve got some amazing teachers, staff members that are excited about something new. You know, you jump on something new, the energy could be one way or the other. It could just be defeated. But, when you’re on something new and everybody’s excited from the staff down I think that just kind of encourages the entire organization as a whole. I’m really pumped about that. I’ve got 35 seniors this year. I have 55 juniors, so our classes are kind of building from there. We’re 130 freshmen, I think right around there. 125. The future is headed in the right direction so I’m excited about that. I think everybody else is excited. I’m gonna say excited about three or four more times, and maybe I’ll get the point across with that.

Stormy Bell (26:55): Okay. That’s fine. Wonderful. Alright. Thank you so much for coming on today. I appreciate your wisdom. I love the perspective, especially about the students needing to find out what aligns with their passions and their goals as opposed to just doing everything. That’s my takeaway from this is just to be mindful of it. For the parents listening, don’t push your kids into everything. Help them choose.

Troy Childress (27:24): Absolutely.

Stormy Bell (27:25): Choose what matters most to them. Alright, Troy thank you. Maybe there’ll be another time. I’ll have you on talk about something else

Troy Childress (27:34): Anytime you want, I’m happy. Yes thank you Stormy.

Stormy Bell (27:35): Alright. Alright. Thank you to all my listeners. We’ll be back with another episode. Thank you.

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