Good morning, everybody.

I am presiding officer Shikara Johnson, your District 4 commissioner.

Welcome to the March 10th 2026 Board of Commissioners meeting.

We have a pretty packed agenda today, so we will get going.

If we are running low on printed agendas, there is a QR code outside the door posted on the wall that you can scan and get the agenda.

So at this time, we will start with our inspirational, which is Chaplain Sarah Hooker, Reverend Sarah Hooker is the Julia Thompson Smith chaplain and director of religious and spiritual life at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.

She is an ordained, is ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Presbyterian Church and has worked in campus ministry, congressional ministry, and hospital chapter chaplaincy, the daughter of two ordained pastors.

Life and work in the church has been an integral part of her way in this world.

She finds some of her greatest joy in ministry walking beside young people as they figure out who they are and what they want to be and why that's so important and valued.

Sarah enjoys nature and spending time in the garden is a voracious reader, lover of music, singing and listening, and traveling the world with her husband and son.

Good morning, Reverend Hooker.

Thank you.

Thank you to all of the commissioners, and particularly Officer Johnson for the invitation to be with you all today.

I am Sarah Hooker.

I am the Julia Thompson Smith Chaplain, Director of Religious Life at Agnes Scott College, which is an institution of the Decatur community for the last 137 years.

Agnes Scott is a historic women's college, which welcomes undergraduate women students from all over the country and even the world to its halls and classrooms.

And I have had the great privilege of working there as the chaplain for the last four years.

As we start this meeting today in this long, very full agenda, I will invite you all to do and participate in a practice that I encourage our students to do whenever we are in a gathering together.

So I'd like for everyone to uh put their feet flat on the floor.

Find a comfortable position of your body.

Place your hands on your lap, on your chest.

You can close your eyes or you can look into the distance.

And I invite all of us to take a deep breath.

And then to take another to center ourselves to center this moment, to center the time that we are spending together in this space.

To invite in the presence of those who are unable to be in this space today.

For the people that are our neighbors that are our friends, that we recognize and honor in this space, to the spirit or to the other, to the God that we welcome in.

To be with us and to calm us and to guide us.

Yes.

More than 20 years ago, as I do the math.

Young people have to figure out a way when they go into the world.

And how we approach the world and how we live into that world.

How we honor who we are and figure out who we are as a person and how that works and how that will best serve the world that we are going into.

At this time of year in the call it in the academic year, we are reaching the end.

At this time of year in the call it in the academic year we are reaching the end and that might seem silly to say as we are only 10 days into March but in our mindset and in the mindset of everyone at a college institution the semester is done the academic year is done and we're all just grinding towards that May graduation date to those finals.

And something that I encounter with a lot of students around this time of year particularly with our senior students who are graduating is that they figure and they're just questioning who am I going to be outside of this space Agnes Scott is a wonderful place where it provides four years of community of home of understanding of identity building of friendship of support of mentorship of learning.

And then that senior year comes and panic arises what is to come what happens next and for these young students that question is very prescient at this time it is something that holds deep in them because who are they in this world that is so uncertain and sometimes very scary particularly as young women what I've reflected on a lot with students over the last couple of months and weeks in particular is what helps you to make a home what helps you to make a home in a the place that you are this is something that I have maybe not struggled with but experienced quite a bit in my life as Officer Johnson read in my biography I am the child of two Presbyterian pastors and so my life has been filled with moving all across the country like a military brat we Presbyterian pastors and families are all around the world I was born in California have lived in Colorado Minnesota Minnesota twice Nebraska New Jersey New York Georgia and Georgia again and in my 43 years of existence on this planet I have now reached the longest I have ever lived in one state and any given time in my entire life and that is nine years and three months and so when students ask me this question how do I find a home I feel I'm uniquely qualified to answer that question because I have had to find a home in many many places around this world and I've never been in one place for very long until now and so what does it mean to build something around you what does it mean to foster a space of hospitality of welcome what does it mean to foster a space of safety of security of permanence but impermanence what are the things that allow us to build that community around us where do we find our neighbors where do we find our friends where do we find our sense of belonging one thing that I love about Agnes Scott College is our motto and are there any Agnes Scott alum in the room are there any that's such a surprise how anyone related to an Agnes Scott alum or a friend to an Agnes Scott alum okay there's the hands yes and so I don't know if you have heard alum say the motto but it is repeated often and with vigor on our campus that Agnes Scott students are called to think deeply live honorably and engage the social challenges of our times and so these are the building blocks and foundations of who Agnes Scott alum find themselves as students but it's also something that they carry on with them into the world and I often encourage our students to think about how do we live these values out in building their own community in finding their own home because it involves us thinking deeply about who we are and what it is that we want and what we want to see in the world it requires living honorably knowing what your values are and sticking with those not being afraid to proclaim what those values are and to find your friends and your community partners who share those values to do the work together and it means using your thinking skills and your values to engage the social challenges of our time and I think that is key too and all of you in this space are doing that that we are here in this room you all are doing

It requires living honorably, knowing what your values are and sticking with those, not being afraid to proclaim what those values are and to find your friends and your community partners who share those values to do the work together.

And it means using your thinking skills and your values to engage the social challenges of our time.

And I think that is key too.

And all of you in this space are doing that.

That we are here in this room, you all are doing this work, you all are here as community members for this meeting to think deeply, to live honorably in your values, and you are engaging in the things that make DeCab County your home, your home place, the place that you love, you are engaging in the social challenges that are before all of you.

These are the things that we take with us, that we gather together, that we hold on to as we create spaces, spaces of welcome, spaces of companionship, and spaces that we are able to call home.

And so I invite all of us as we enter this meeting to think about who we are and how we make a home, how we make a home in a space, in the spaces of our neighborhoods, in the space of our county, in the spaces of our state and of our nation.

Who are we to live honorably, to respect and honor one another, to find shared values and commitment to neighbors and friends, so that we can build something together that is engaging the challenges that we find before us, that we do so with welcome, and we do it with love and compassion.

I'd like to conclude this time with you all this morning with a poem by the Reverend Jan Richardson, who is a pastor and a poet.

And this is from her most recent book, How the Stars Get in Your Bones, a book of blessings.

And if you ever see me in different spaces or encountered me in other instances, you'll know that I read a lot of her poetry.

It speaks to me and it speaks a lot to our students because of her emphasis on blessing.

What does it mean to be a blessing to people and to yourself?

And so as we think about and as we reflect on what it means to make a home, I invite you to hear her words, Jan's words, in this poem that she wrote, the year as a house.

Think of the year as a house, door flung wide in welcome, threshold swept and waiting, a graced spaciousness opening and offering itself to you.

Let it be blessed in every room, let it be hallowed in every corner.

Let every nook be a refuge and every object set to holy use.

Let it be here that safety will rest.

Let it be here that health will make its home.

Let it be here that peace will show its face.

Let it be here that love will find its way.

Here let the weary come.

Let the aching come.

Let the lost come, let the sorrowing come.