Like so many people from Jacksonville, I'll never forget my first-time visiting Maple Street four years ago. I was meeting with

friends for a small group, and I remember being very excited that they chose to meet at Maple Street because I had heard so many great things but had never tried it before. I walked into the Julington Creek location, and I was so impressed by everything about the experience. The food, the team, the atmosphere, and everything else just echoed their mission statement, "Help people, serve others, be a part of the community."  As a Jacksonville native, I love supporting local businesses, and from that moment forward I looked for

every excuse to go to one of the many Community stores in Jacksonville.

Since the beginning of 2020 I felt that I was being nudged in a different direction. For the last four years I've worked for my local church as a worship leader and although I still felt called to do that for the first time in my life I felt like it wasn't supposed to be my full-time occupation. I've always known that I was called to be a worship leader and it's a calling I know that I will carry my entire life but a still small voice began to speak to me and I knew that it was time to find something else as a full time vocation and let worship leading be my passion. This was a terrifying

process for me because I had no idea what direction to go or where to start. I started looking for jobs on all the job sites and I got several interviews and offers, but nothing was a good fit. In August of 2020, I saw the job posting for the Community Leader position for the San Marco location. I saw it, and I kept scrolling because I had absolutely no food experience and I didn't think there was any chance I would be a good fit with Maple Street.