Good Works, Inc.

 

Hi! My name is Sydney Teagarden, and I am a second-generation Good Works staff member working full time at the Good Works Timothy House as a House Supervisor. My parents, Casey and Michael Teagarden, met while working at Good Works 25 years ago, and it’s a joy to get to see God’s faithfulness to them and their legacy by bringing me back here.

I was born in Wooster, Ohio, but then we moved to Florida when I was almost 6 years old. I was homeschooled for almost my whole life, and then I graduated in May 2023 with my Bachelors of Arts in Community Development from Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA. During that time, I worked in our IT department, chapel department, and was a TA for the Community Development department. I loved getting to sing in our Chorale and play mallet percussion in a Percussion Ensemble.

One of the requirements for my degree was to do an internship in 2022 with a ministry that was putting into action the principles that I was learning. I asked about volunteering with Good Works, since our Vision of Hope document even references one of the books a couple of my professors wrote called When Helping Hurts, so I knew we had some common ground in treating people as active participants in their development instead of passive recipients.

Because I had a background in summer camp ministry, I worked with the Kids Discovery Club, and to fulfill my research requirements, I conducted interviews with past and present Transformation Station Volunteers and then presented my findings at the end of the summer.

What I didn’t expect was to be in a community for 12 weeks that so utterly lived out the Gospel in such an inviting way that I cried multiple times as my soul adjusted to being truly safe here. After that summer ended and senior year began, I knew I had to ask Keith if I could come back. Thankfully, he said yes!

My religious background is eclectic. I grew up in both a non-denominational church context and a Messianic Jewish context. My stepdad is now the rabbi of our synagogue in southwest Florida, and I’ve served there as both the cantor and a worship leader. I love talking about how the Lord has been faithful to us through ALL generations, especially how that is shown in the Old Testament. I then attended a Presbyterian college for 4 years, so that has also influenced both my theology and my practice of it. To sum it up, I love Jesus and I want to learn to love those He loves. Some of the passages of Scripture that continue to be a blessing to me are Lamentations chapter 3 and Isaiah 58.

I’m grateful to be back up in Ohio around family and friends, old and new. I’m a birdwatcher, photographer, and enjoy putting together puzzles, playing games with my friends, crocheting, and petting other people’s cats.