Teen works for others on weekends
Melissa Haneline
The Post and Courier
Abi Thompson, a rising senior at Bishop England High School, has been doing volunteer work since she was in kindergarten. The 17-year-old Mount Pleasant resident has been involved with local organizations like Crisis Ministries and Habitat for Humanity.
Abi Thompson has probably done more volunteer work by the age of 17 than most people do in a lifetime.
She's cleaned out donkey pens, painted houses, helped the homeless, cleared paths, planted trees and collected canned goods instead of candy at Halloween, the latter in costume as a hippie.
It all started in kindergarten when the Mount Pleasant resident helped plant seedlings at the Charles Pinckney National Historic Site on Long Point Road.
"My big job was to get pine straw and put it around the trees that were planted," she remembers. "That was the only thing I could carry."
Her volunteering started in earnest about eight years ago. Since then, it's been a rewarding stream of day- or weeklong projects to help the needy, the young and the old.
"I live in a nice house with air conditioning and paint on the walls. There are a lot of people who don't," Thompson said. "Seeing that little bit of hope in their eyes when you paint a room, it's incredible."
In June, she spent a week painting the bathroom, kitchen and living room of a house in Bluffton and then helped rebuild wooden steps, fix drawers, put up a gutter and clean the outside of a mobile home. It was part of the Catholic Heart Workcamp, where she worked with 350 other teenagers and they all slept on blow-up air mattresses at a middle school.
"I love going on these mission trips," Thompson said. "It reminds me how lucky I am, and it can change someone's life just by painting a bathroom. They always smile, which is really inspiring to me."
Besides the recent work camp, she has worked with Home Works of America in Charleston, Columbia and Fayetteville, N.C., learning roofing, masonry and flooring, as well as painting and cleaning.
She also has served meals to the homeless at Crisis Ministries and helped with Special Olympics at a bowling center in West Ashley.
She has helped sort donated clothes and household goods at the Neighborhood House in downtown Charleston.
During Harbor Fest at Patriots Point, she helped kids with coloring and games.
At Healing Farm Ministries, a farm for physically and mentally challenged people near McClellanville, she cleaned donkey pens, painted shelters and built fences in May.
For five years, she has helped Habitat for Humanity by digging home foundations and doing landscaping in Mount Pleasant and Columbia.
At the Carter-May Home for elderly Catholic women in Mount Pleasant, she has played trivia and bingo to entertain the residents.
Thompson is a member of Stella Maris Roman Catholic Church on Sullivan's Island, which she said has instilled in her a lot of her passion for giving back to the community.
When she's not volunteering, there's not a lot of time for TV or computers.
A rising senior at Bishop England High School, she's captain of the girl's varsity soccer team; she plays defense. She's also a midfielder on a Columbia United premier soccer team, which travels once a week during the fall.
Though soccer is a big part of her life, she believes volunteering is a passion she will carry into adulthood, maybe as a psychologist after college.
"It's become part of my life," Thompson said.
Marie Donnelly, director of youth ministry at the Cathedral of St. John The Baptist and St. Mary's of the Annunciation Catholic churches, said she wished all people had their act together as much as Thompson.
"Even though she is beautiful and athletic, she has an openness and willingness to help and include people," Donnelly said. "She innately likes to serve and help people, and she relaxes them. If it is scheduled to happen and she knows about it, she is there. Abi is phenomenal."
Thompson's mother, Ann, thinks so as well.
"When she's not playing soccer on a weekend, she looks for opportunities to volunteer to do other things," Ann Thompson said. "She is an amazing kid."
Reach Warren Wise at wwise@postandcourier.com or 745-5850.
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Comments
This article has 13 comment(s)
Posted by sarabean428 on July 20, 2008 at 6:35 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Thank you Abi for all of your time and heart that you give to your community and those around you. May you be blessed in all that you do!
Posted by echo on July 20, 2008 at 8 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Can you imagine where the world would be in everyone had a heart as selfless as Abi? I'm saving this article for when my kids are old enough to help. What a great example she is setting. You go, Abi!
Posted by oldglory on July 20, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Such an exceptionally fine young woman! Your life rewards will be great, I'm sure. You -are- phenomenal.
This is the positive article that all commentors yammer for--here it is guys/gals! This is the good person, the well-grounded person, the person who obviously reaches deep inside to bring out the best she has to offer.
Where the heck are you all this a.m.? Let's hear it for this young woman, please!
Posted by RTC on July 20, 2008 at 10:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You are a very unselfish young lady, Abi.
I am sure that all of the giving of your time has been greatly appreciated by those that have received it.
Two of my children have also done mission trips, and they always came back feeling greatly rewarded and grateful for all that they have.
There is no greater gift to society than giving of yourself.
Posted by preachlove on July 20, 2008 at 1:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
This young lady walks the walk! Nice to read good articles.
Posted by zoomru on July 20, 2008 at 6:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Miss Abi Thompson,
Enjoy this moment...YOU have earned it.
I have a MISSION FOR you....NEVER STOP LEARNING!
Code Name: No-Trash!
As part of this mission, you need to go to www.startech.net and read and learn. Also read this article too.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/20...
These machines turn OUR trash into energy to be SOLD. As you will learn, we have an incinerator and a LANDFILL called Bees Ferry landfill that could be closed when these machines are installed. YOUR future children could bear the brunt of OUR present leaders foolish decisions. These decisions will be made in the near future. Call down to the Post and Courier and talk to Mr. Charles Rowe. Ask him why no print articles have run on the solution for OUR landfill problems. These machines are being installed in Puerto Rico, Panama, and other countries but NOT here in South Carolina. You will learn more about your immediate community and OUR leaders than you realize. Look at your parents TAX receipts for their cars and property. Talk to your Mom and Dad and ask them if they know that their trash is energy? Do they know that it could generate 4 tax revenue streams?? Then ask Mr. Rowe if he knows this? Why is there no PRESS?? Welcome to your world Abi...you've done GOOD...NOW dig into the BAD and UGLY. Your voice, smile and "CHARM" could change a STATE!!
I know you go to the beach...have you ever wondered why we don't harness the WIND?? I wonder too. If you want to have fun in your science class, ask your science teacher if he or she has been to www.selsam.com and studied the windturbines for OUR coastline to harness the WIND. Then call Mr. Rowe and ask him why he has not printed any articles on windfarms??
Abi..you have your mission..YOU WILL SUCCEED !
I know you can do it!
Posted by walleyedwoman1215 on July 20, 2008 at 7:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Abi, you are AMAZING!! People 50 years your senior haven't contributed as much as you have. Thank you for all you do!
Posted by Siri on July 20, 2008 at 8:27 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What an inspiring story. I wish PnC would run more articles like this .
Posted by GG on July 20, 2008 at 8:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What a great story.
I have been fortunate to have known students like Abi. I have even seen volunteerism programs turn around the lives of some students.
I have always believed that students should be required to serve a number of volunteer hours of community service before they can graduate from HS. I believe it would mean a real change for kids nowadays who feel such a sense of entitlement.
Posted by roze on July 20, 2008 at 9:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Abi has learned that it really is more blessed to give than to receive. People on the receiving end, those who have such great need, are often embarrassed and humiliated. It sounds like Abi appreciates that she has abilities and is willing to share the most precious of commodities: time. Thanks, PnC, for sharing her story. I hope it inspires others as much as it did me.
Posted by PalmettoDP on July 21, 2008 at 11:10 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Wonderful story - Abi sets a great example for other young people.
Posted by iloveohiointhesummer on July 21, 2008 at 12:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
the world needs more people like you. good work, Abi.
Posted by TheSafetyMan on July 21, 2008 at 2:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)
These are the kind of stories I wish the P&C would publish more often. Thanks Abi, for setting a great example for all of us.