Giving Back
Fannie Battle Day Home for Children Joins Advent for first SEE615 Project
For more than 125 years, the Fannie Battle Day Home for Children has provided invaluable care for children and families facing economic and educational hardship. An organization dedicated providing affordable, high-quality childcare for at-risk children, Fannie Battle’s location in East Nashville is central to its mission. The Fannie Battle story began when a woman named Fannie Battle opened a center in 1891 to care for, feed and teach children who were left at home while their parents went to work during the day. Though East Nashville has been revitalized in recent years, the community still needs help. Fannie Battle’s story and legacy of service made it the perfect partner for Advent’s first SEE615 (Serve. Engage. Embolden.) community service project. In June, Advent invited Fannie Battle to work with us just as any other project. We brought the Fannie Battle team to our office. Fannie Battle’s staff told us about their history, core values and student and parent community. Through our collaborative brainstorm session, we pinpointed the lobby and the downstairs classroom hallway as the primary areas of focus. Through the summer and early fall, Advent staff designed a lobby that welcomed guests with warm blues and wood tones as well as graphics that reinforced the Fannie Battle story. We also worked with the Fannie Battle staff to transform the classroom hallway with paint masks and dimensional text to signify classrooms for different age groups — the Sunbeams, Caterpillars, Butterflies and Bumble Bees. For three weeks during November and December, the kids at Fannie Battle went home and Advent swooped in to paint, install graphics and make over the lobby. Here’s a look at the big reveal on Dec. 22: