The faculty and staff at Elephant’s Fork Elementary School usually planan end-of-the-year event each year to thank all of the school’s volunteers.

Unfortunately, last year they never got the chance.

Just before the school’s thank-you event, a tornado tore through the city, with most of the worst damage happening right down the street from the elementary school.

“The tornado changed everything,” said Veleka Gatling, principal of Elephant’s Fork. “We had to cancel a lot of things. Our fifth-graders did not even get to tour the middle school.”

But Gatling and the rest of the Elephant’s Fork staff did not want their volunteers to go another year without any acknowledgement.

On Friday morning, the school hosted a thank-you breakfast and invited everyone who has volunteered at the school in the past year to come out. All total, the school has about 90 volunteers a year.

While it was ordinarily these men and women serving the teachers and staff, Friday morning it was the teachers and staff serving the men and women.

The faculty donated all the food and materials.

The guidance department provided gifts.

Gatling herself cooked a breakfast casserole.

“It’s so important to connect with the community and say thank you for their time and effort with our boys and girls and our teachers,” Gatling said. She said that these volunteers do everything from chaperoning field trips and cutting out bulletin board materials to be laminated for teachers to sponsoring the school as partners in education.

Debi Brooks works for Virginia Commonwealth Bank, one of the school’s partners in education, and visits the schools once a week to help tutor. Brooks said that, while the event is appreciated, the real fun comes in working with the students.

“I would encourage other people to volunteer,” Brooks said. “It’s so rewarding when you’re helping a child – helping them be able to learn to read or learn division or multiplication. It’s wonderful. I enjoy that. I think it’s great. And it’s great that what we do is appreciated.”

Gatling did not hide the fact the volunteers are needed.

“We could not do the job we do without the volunteers,” Gatling said.

The volunteers are especially important to Elephant’s Fork, Gatling added, because the school lost 250 students when Hillpoint Elementary School opened. Losing that many students and parents that could serve as volunteers could have greatly affected the operations at Elephant’s Fork. Having such a readily available volunteer community helped combat that problem.

“We really have fought to maintain what we thought we would have lost,” Gatling said. “They helped us do that.”

During the breakfast, volunteers got to hear from some of the staff, thanking them for their work. Then, it was back to business as usual.

There is a career fair coming up, plus the end-of-the-year celebration that needs help.

“Once you get in here, you know we’re going to get you for something else,” Gatling joked.