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Paul:

It's that time again for one of Jackson's favorite annual festivals, one whose generosity helps keep the lights on and the programs running for a charitable benefactor each year.

Hey, it's Paul Wolf, with a front-row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi. We call the podcast Soul Sessions. It's the people, places, and events that make the City With Soul shine. Today we're talking WellsFest. For 30 years. Wells United Methodist Church has hosted their annual festival, a family friendly, alcohol-free event, with food, kids' fun, and a full day of local music, and I mean really good local music. It's a cool story, the founding of WellsFest. I'll make sure to link to that in our show notes today. But one thing remains constant. Each year, a local organization benefits from this fundraiser. I'm talking to Robert Langford today, Executive Director of Operation Shoestring, this year's WellsFest charity. I wanted to use this episode as a platform for Robert to talk about all the good work they do to make a difference in Jackson.

Robert:

We were formally created in 1968, but our roots go back a few years before that, in response to the shooting of Medgar Evers and his 1966 March Against Fear. Specifically, people met in a neighborhood church here, right in the heart of Jackson and what today is called the Mid City neighborhood. They were asked, "How did they want to respond to that really tough moment?" Neighborhood residents said, "We want to continue to do a lot of things for them, part and parcel of the civil rights movement."

That's community organizing and pushing voter registration and so on and so forth. But what we really need is we want to create safe spaces for kids in our neighborhood because the neighborhood park had had a fence built around it to keep neighborhood kids out. We are really, really interested in having our kids be able to be kids, to play, but do it in a safe way. That response to the dynamism and tragedy of that moment in 1966, along with the values of the civil rights movement, which were really basic human values ... How do you create a world in which people are treated equitably and fairly and justly ... led less than two years later to the creation of this neighborhood organization, which actually started at Wells Church.

It was a separate organization, but it had very heavy Wells Memorial United Methodist Church involvement, and our work then, in 1968, the founding was focused on creating literally and figuratively safe spaces for kids and, by extension, support for their families and other neighborhood residents. Today that's still how we approach our work. What is necessary to help children and families and neighborhoods thrive? That involves some of the things that we do and a lot of other things that other people and organizations, what are referred to generically as community stakeholders, do or should do. Those are the guiding principles of justice and fairness and respect, compassion, that guide the work that we do today in 2023, which are really just the things that we all individually, and our families, and our communities, and our faith communities really want and need.

Paul:

This is not the first time that Operation Shoestring has benefited from WellsFest, right? You all have been a benefactor before.

Robert:

We have. It's been a minute, as we say here in Mississippi. It's been a while. But we are really delighted to be chosen this year by Wells. Timing is great for us because we have a lot of funding that we've got to raise to help support our afterschool and summer programs and our parents support programs. It really is a grace moment for us. We're really grateful.

Paul:

Really full circle moment to know that Operation Shoestring started out of Wells Church and that you continue to be a benefactor of the work of the church. What has that meant to the organization and the sustainability of the organization over the years?

Robert:

The intersection of our interests really lies at the marriage of our values. What that means is not just believe it, but do it. My dad always quoted something from the second chapter of James, "Blessed in his doing," or "Faith without works is dead." To have a community partner and maybe the spiritual parent of Operation Shoestring be Wells Church and that Wells community, here more than half a century later, that alignment is still there in a way that really works. At least, it works for us. I hope it works for the folks at Wells.

Paul:

Speaking of a spiritual alignment, I'm reminded, too, of the phrase, "Be the change you want to see." You all are going into the community, making a difference, and this partnership with WellsFest just helps spur that work along.

Robert:

Oh, for sure. Again, what we think and what we have observed makes a difference in creating a healthy, thriving community, is providing those kinds of very basic supportive services and opportunities, that all kids and families, whatever you look like, wherever you live, need. That's quality education, access to quality healthcare, access to affordable quality housing, the ability to have a meaningful job or to make ends meet, to take care of yourself and your loved ones, and I think, to have a healthy and robust, for me, spiritual life, and to ground all that in your basic values.

We believe really strongly in creating those opportunities with a host of other people in organizations to do that.

We run what we think is a high-quality afterschool and summer program that has a good STEM focus, a very heavy literacy focus. But we also do a lot of really fun things so that kids will want to come to us. We see that we have really strong average daily attendance, which is an indicator of something, the very least of which we know is that kids, or at least their families, want them to be there. We think that also helps ensure that the kids will have better attendance at school, because in order to come to our Operation Shoestring Project Kids Afterschool program, you got to go to school. It sounds very basic, but for a lot of our families, school attendance is a challenge, or has been traditionally. We are really seeing that that is increasingly less of a challenge. We're fully subscribed with the numbers of kids that we can serve given our resources. So with additional resources, we could meet additional needs that we can't right now.

Paul:

Robert, I'm sure you will be at WellsFest on September 30th at Jamie Fowler Boyll Park. What's one of your favorite things about this annual festival?

Robert:

I will be there. I will be there with shorts and sunscreen and hat and sunglasses. There are a number of things. Selfishly, I love the music, all different genres. I love the food because I'm made in Mississippi, and I love to eat. What can I say? But I love, really, to see the sea of God's humanity, all sorts of folks from all different walks of life, just having a great time. It's always been really good weather. I don't know. Clearly, Wells Church has a direct line to upstairs or something. But I love being in that space. It's a joy-filled opportunity to do good. But just, I think, one of the things that we see much less than we should nowadays is that people are not in places celebrating and being with each other and having a joyful time. This is one of those places where it's an alcohol- and drug-free event, and you don't miss it. Just being there and being with one another, listening to great music and seeing kids take pony rides and all sorts of fun things, it's just a great day. Truly. Truly.

Paul:

That's Robert Langford, the Executive Director of this year's benefactor of WellsFest, Operation Shoestring. WellsFest is an all-day affair on September 30th, at Jamie Fowler Boyll Park on Lakeland Drive. It's next door to Smith-Wills Stadium. It's also a pet-friendly day, starting with a pet parade at 9:30. There's nonstop music from some of the best bands in the Jackson area from 10:00 until 4:00. There's a children's area, great food from food trucks, plus an arts and crafts vendor area, a plant sale, including heirloom plants, and the WellsFest Virtual Silent Auction. There's just so much to tell, and not so much time left on the show. We'll link to more info about WellsFest and their charity partner, Operation Shoestring, in the show notes.

Soul Sessions is produced by Visit Jackson, the destination organization from Mississippi's Capital City. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus and Dr. Rickey Thigpen. I'm our managing editor. You want to know more about our mission, about what we do? Log on to visitjackson.com.

I'm Paul Wolf. You've been listening to Soul Sessions.

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