Person of the Year: Jeremy Everett

So it’s an obvious parallel that Jeremy Everett, the son of a Baptist preacher, literally takes that message to heart as executive director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty.

The success of the collaborative under Everett’s leadership and how it has brought together differing sectors to combat food insecurity — not just locally — is the reason Everett is this year’s Waco Today Person of the Year.

Longtime friend and collaborative board member Kris Kaiser Olson said it’s in Everett’s DNA to be the kind of leader the organization needs to be successful.

“Rarely do people learn so early in their lives why they are on this earth; what they are called to do in the world,” she said. “Jeremy has known for a long while and he never wavers in his calling. Everything he does hones his skills and adds to his knowledge base for this work.

“He really believes that we can eliminate hunger around the world and he convinces others that it is possible. He is a genuinely nice guy and people want to be on his team, all signs of a true leader.”

Everett is often called upon to speak before Congress or subcommittees in Washington to share his expertise on the subject.

Influences

Everett said he might differ with Olson’s assessment on just how soon he knew what he wanted to do with his life. But growing up the son of a Baptist pastor had its influences.

“My father and grandfather were preachers and my parents actually just moved here about three and a half years ago (to China Spring),” he said. “I was born in San Antonio, but we moved around a pretty good bit when I was growing up. About every three and a half to four years, we would move to a new town.

“One of the benefits of moving around so much and growing up was, one, you get to meet all kinds of different people and learn different context and different terrains and all that kind of stuff. But anytime you move to a new place, you’re an immediate outsider.

“So I mean, when you’re on the outside, you see the other outsiders. You know who’s not fitting in, who doesn’t have their place, their social place. And there’s a sense of recognition almost like, ‘I see you. You see me.’

“And I think that that helped me observe people, maybe begin to develop some empathy even at a young age for people that found themselves on the outside of social systems.”

Like a lot of teenagers, sports became a passion and growing to become 6-foot-4 meant basketball played a big part of his life.

“It wouldn’t be uncommon for me to go play basketball in an inner-city neighborhood or whatever during part of the day and then go over to a friend’s house who might live in a country club or something like that all in the same day,” he said.” As a kid, that was just life. That was just normal.”

Changes

Something changed, however, when he attended Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.

“It wasn’t until I got to college when those inequities that I saw started to move from my subconscious to my conscious mind,” he added. “I think I had a couple professors that probably helped facilitate that happening, whether I was aware of it or not.

“But I went to college assuming I would be a pastor because that’s what my father and grandfather did.”

Everett said he wasn’t especially focused or disciplined in his studies.

“I’d had some difficult experiences my junior year and really began to question my faith experience,” he recalled. “And I remember consciously saying, ‘If Jesus really is God’s son, then maybe I should pay more attention to how he lived, not just the fact that he died for my sins.’

“I was a cultural evangelical, typical Baptist kid. And that’s when I started realizing who the people were that Jesus would hang out with. I started reading the kinds of things that this dude’s saying. And I’m just like, ‘What is this?’”

After his junior year at Samford, he was working as a summer youth minister at a small country church in Alabama.

“I came across the movie about St. Francis called ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon’ and it changed my life,” Everett. “Here I’m watching the story of Francis. I’d never heard of the story of Francis. During that movie, they call him Francesco. So I didn’t even know the story was about St. Francis until later.”

But that movie flicked the switch in his head.

‘After I watched, I was like, ‘That’s my answer,” Everett said. “So I gathered up all my possessions that I had in my little dorm room, put them in my car, and I drove over the mountain to a downtown park in Birmingham where a lot of the homeless people would hang out, which was right around Kelly Ingram Park, which is where the civil rights activity happened.

“There was a firehouse mission that served the homeless. I knew where some of the homeless would hang out, mainly because my one friend who was a professing non-Christian would always take me with him. Any time we’d have a fraternity party and have leftover food, he would have me go with him to take it down to the mission so that we wouldn’t waste food.”

Coming to BaylorThat also set in motion Everett’s move to Baylor and Truett Seminary.

“That moment I gave away my stuff I knew immediately that I was called to the issue or called to people who were in poverty, who were economic outsiders,” he said. “I didn’t know what that meant. I’d never heard of social work. I didn’t know really what nonprofit work was. I knew church work and businesses and politics.”

He arrived in Waco with a purpose.

“When I came to seminary, all I knew was that I needed to live intentionally in a high-poverty community,” he said. “That’s all I knew. I need to live among the people so that I can see what’s happening with people in poverty, sun up to sundown, not just volunteering on a two-hour weekend shift. For me at this point in my life, very much an experiential learner, I’ve got to be immersed in this reality.”

He moved into a garage apartment on Ethel Avenue, but over time joined a group of seminary students who chose to move into a low-income neighborhood on 15h Street. One of his roommates was Erin Conaway, now the pastor of Seventh and James Baptist Church, who recalled that move.

“When we moved into the house on 15th Street, Jeremy sold us all on the idea of being good neighbors,” Conaway said. “We were surrounded by halfway houses with lots of neighbors who were trying to overcome addictions and get jobs after incarceration. Jeremy instantly befriended our neighbors. They all called him Slim!

“He was able to get a local church to donate some old metal folding chairs and we set them up around our lawn so our neighbors would have a place to sit when they had to be out of their house, but didn’t yet have a job.

“Jeremy was always quick to make a sandwich for anyone who was hungry. One day, he walked into the house and a stranger was there in our living room. Jeremy loved having people just drop in at anytime so he was happy to meet a new friend.

“He instantly offered to make him a sandwich for lunch. As Jeremy went into the kitchen to prepare the sandwich, the stranger (who turned out to be there to steal some stuff) made off with our TV and VCR.

“When we got home and heard the story from Jeremy — he was more upset that the guy didn’t take the sandwich than he was that our TV got stolen.

“It was like living with the Mayor of the Neighborhood. Everyone loved talking to Jeremy and having him listen deeply to them. When you talk with Jeremy — whether you’re a member of Congress or a homeless guy on the street, or a decades-old friend — you know you are loved. It’s a beautiful gift and I have seen him offer it to everyone.”

Mission Waco founder Jimmy Dorrell invited Everett to work with his nonprofit.

“That’s how I learned community development as a profession and as a way of engaging communities,” Everett added. Later, he moved out to the World Hunger Relief Farm on the edge of Waco.

“I lived out at the farm for about a year and a half,” he said. “That was really the first opportunity for me to integrate. Everybody was preachers and farmers in my family. So I was able to integrate those two experiences there.”

He met his wife Amy while at seminary.

“I was a first-year student and she was working at Common Grounds and was a senior at Baylor,” he said. “It took me about a year and a half to actually ask her out on a date, I think. But we dated and were engaged for a couple of years.”

Amy’s father also is a Baptist pastor. Their parents married the two in Houston a few months after 9/11. Amy today is the minister to children and families at Dayspring Baptist Church, where they attend with their sons Lucas, 18, Sam, 17, and Wyatt, 7.

“I was 38 weeks pregnant with our first son when I graduated from grad school,” Amy said. “Jeremy and I had plans of moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to work at the Center for Action and Contemplation, but when we learned I was pregnant, we made the decision to stay in Texas close to family.

“We welcomed Lucas into the world just a week after we moved from Waco to San Antonio where Jeremy took a job doing community development.”

The time in San Antonio was informative, Jeremy Everett said, including turning a mission center into a successful coffee shop. After five years he and the family returned to Waco in 2009 for him to take charge of what was then called the Texas Hunger Initiative.

Good Fortune

A press release about the start of the Texas Hunger Initiative caught the eye of a regional administrator at the U.S Department of Agriculture.

“They requested a meeting with me, which was just really good fortune,” Everett said. “I go in there and I expect to meet a guy that’s in a suit and all stuffy and he’s going to tell me all the reasons why my plan can’t work.

“He was the opposite. He was a down-home guy from North Louisiana. He’d been a senior-level appointee during the Clinton administration, but still had his farm in North Louisiana that he would go back to on the weekends.

“And when you asked him what his job was, he said, ‘My job is to feed hungry kids.’ His name is Bill Ludwig.

“Bill was a champion from this concept that I had of organizing the systemic response from the moment I sat down with him and blew me away.”

The contrast between Washington, D.C., and Waco was jarring for Everett.

“I’m in a cubicle in the hallway at the School of Social Work, which is in a parking garage over on Baylor’s campus and I’m meeting with this guy and he’s like, ‘Anything you need, you let us know.’ So (colleague) Suzii Paynter was at that meeting and a friend of mine from the food banks was at that meeting with me. Suzii and I just left and we were just laughing like, ‘How is this happening?’”

“So (Ludwig) said, ‘What do you need?’ And I said, ‘I need six months. I need six months to write up the plan.’ He calls me back weeks later. President Obama had just been elected and he came out with a goal to end child hunger and tasked that to Secretary (of Agriculture Tom) Vilsack. Secretary Vilsack tasked that to his regional administrators.”

From that connection with the federal government, the initiative began to engage in successes by starting programs to feed children, especially in rural areas during the summer. That led to a hugely successful summer meal program in Texas, which caught the attention of other states.

Everett takes a big-picture view, but it starts at the local level.

“The collaborative’s mission is to cultivate scalable solutions to end hunger, and we do that through a three-pronged approach,” Everett said. “We combine research with practice or proximity, and then translate all that to public policy.”

The collaborative held its first Hunger Summit on the Baylor campus this fall with experts from across the country.

Everett, who wrote the book ‘I Was Hungry’ two years ago, is often consulted to share his expertise and find solutions to the systemic problem of food insecurity.

Asked to describe what her husband does as executive director, Amy replied: “Jeremy networks. He listens to people and organizations and finds common ground. He sees obstacles as hurdles to jump over.

“He never stops believing in God’s abundance and the importance of using everything in one’s power and influence to alleviate suffering. That’s what he does.”

Everett is quick to say any successes come from the hard-working staff that surrounds him.

Using Skills

Olson, herself a longtime volunteer and advocate in Waco, said Everett takes the skills he learned in community development in his job.

“Now he uses those skills to organize people, ideas and organizations on a much larger scale, while still making sure local communities get the support they need to end hunger in their cities,” she said.

“Jeremy takes this work very seriously but he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He uses humor and life experiences to endear others to his way of thinking.

“He reels them in and before they know it, they are hunger-free champions alongside him.

“But more than anything, Jeremy is able to envision what is possible and then lead, guide and sometimes even get out of the way so that good work gets done in pursuit of the cause to end hunger.

“The work is not about him; it’s about the work of making sure no one goes hungry.” 

Honorable mention

Linda Livingstone

In her fifth year as president of Baylor University, Linda Livingstone is a leader not only of the school but within college athletics. In June she was named one of nine members of the newly reorganized NCAA Board of Governors, which she now chairs.

A former standout basketball player at Oklahoma State, Livingstone is also vice chair and chair-elect of the American Council on Education board and of the Big 12 Conference Board. Additionally, she serves on the Baylor College of Medicine board of trustees and the board of Independent Colleges and Universities of Texas.

Baylor is building both a new arena for its nationally ranked basketball teams and the Mark and Paula Hurd Welcome Center.

Livingstone also has overseen the development of Baylor’s strategic plan, Illuminate, which provides a foundation for Baylor’s aspiration to become a preeminent Christian research university. She has led Give Light, a $1.1 billion comprehensive philanthropic campaign that supports Illuminate, reaching the campaign’s fundraising goals ahead of schedule.

Kelly Palmer

Kelly Palmer had a short tenure as District 4’s representative on Waco City Council, but she tackled areas the council usually shied from and began discussions.

Palmer resigned Nov. 4 after less than two years as a council member. The licensed social worker and Baylor adjunct professor put her work on hold while serving on the council, which she said was a challenge.

She has been an advocate for social justice and environmental issues and successfully lobbied for better wages and benefits for city workers.

Palmer broke precedent this summer and ruffled some feathers when she urged the council to consider an ordinance called the Grace Act, which would deprioritize local enforcement of abortion limits. The ordinance was considered at Texas cities such as Denton, Austin and Dallas.

She was derided for bringing a “woke” agenda to the local level, though she said the issue has a tangible effect on the lives of her constituents and herself. The issue did not come to a vote.