Middlesex Rotary to honor Jacob’s Ladder founders

Middlesex Rotary to honor Jacob’s Ladder founders

by Larry S. Chowning

Two lifelong residents of Middlesex County, Margie and Aubrey Hall, have been named the 2011 recipients of the “Pride of Middlesex” award presented by the Middlesex Rotary Club.

Former club president Bill Karry announced in February the Halls would be honored at an April 2 banquet/celebration at Christchurch School for founding Jacob’s Ladder and their 20 years of service to the student enrichment program for at-risk children.

In 1988, the late Don Reid, who was minister of Urbanna Baptist Church at the time, asked Margie and Aubrey to travel with him and a group of young people to do mission work for children of migrant workers through a Vacation Bible School program. The children’s parents were employed in the agricultural fields of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. It was there that a seed was planted that led to the establishment of Jacob’s Ladder.

Don and Sarah Reid and the Halls took 12 teenagers from the church on the mission to the Eastern Shore. Diana Pitts also went dressed in her clown suit. “It was an experience!” said Margie. “Do you know what the flies are like over there in July?”

Aubrey said, “During that week, we taught a backyard Bible study. I guess you would call it that. The children could speak English, thank goodness. I was impressed by the fact there were several young kids who were very bright and very inquisitive, but had no opportunity for education. That was the situation that prodded the idea that occurred later.”

That was in July 1988, and in October when he was taking a walk in front of the Gressitt House on Virginia Street, a “light bulb came on,” said Aubrey.

The next week Aubrey said he went down and talked with the headmaster of Christchurch School about the possibility of creating a summer enrichment camp program for the “disadvantaged,” which was the word used at the time. He received a positive reception.

The notion went on for a couple years until the “Lord’s timing,” as Aubrey called it, led the couple to aggressively work toward starting the Jacob’s Ladder program.

They had “pretty much” developed the idea when in the summer of 1990 they went to Florida and proposed their idea to the head of the Jessie Ball DuPont Foundation. Through the foundation, they were eligible for a grant because of their affiliation to Christchurch School.

The program received a $150,000 grant. It was a matching grant where they received $75,000 up front, and had to match the other $75,000 to get the final portion of the grant.

“In retrospect, they made the matching funds a little too easy for us,” said Aubrey. “They allowed us to use in-kind services and we got doctors and dentists to promise services. It didn’t take but four or five months to get the matching $75,000. We didn’t have a child for the program at that point, but they let us count the in-kind services.”

A team of gifted coordinators was then brought together to formulate criteria for the program. In the fall of 1991, they started identifying children and opened the first camp at Christchurch School in the summer of 1992. Jacob’s Ladder stayed at Christchurch for seven years and then moved to Blue Ridge School for two years. Since then, they have held the camps at Chatham Hall.

Margie came up with the name Jacob’s Ladder when she was ironing clothes, the thing she hates to do the most. “We didn’t want a name that insinuated anything bad,” she said. “I was ironing clothes and I was thinking about Jacob in the Bible. Jacob’s family was so dysfunctional. The name is very apropos because so many of the kids come from a stressed family life.”

The program is an enrichment program servicing academically-gifted, at-risk children in grades 4-8. It is meant to encourage “climbers,” as students are called, to stretch and reach for the best that is in them and then refine it.

In 1996 the program received the “Governor’s Partnership in Education Award,” which was presented to the Halls by then Virginia Governor George Allen.

The program also received accolades in 2005 when the University of Richmond invited Jacob’s Ladder to be a partner organization where successful students in the program received placement assistance at the university.

Because 2011 is the 20th year of Jacob’s Ladder, there will be a celebration in April at the University of Richmond to commemorate the achievements of the program.

The Halls will be honored at the Rotary Club’s Pride of Middlesex celebration on Saturday, April 2, at 6:30 p.m. at Christchurch School. Tickets for the event are $35. To purchase tickets, call Burt Alexander (758-4535) or ask any Rotarian.