'It's always the students': As Loop It Up Savannah grows, its focus remains on the children

From a children’s knitting and crochet class at the West Broad Street YMCA to a nonprofit organization that now supports more than 10,000 students in Savannah and beyond, Loop it Up Savannah’s growth is one that can be tied to its commitment to the youth and collaboration with the local community.

One of the driving forces behind the growth is the ability to meet students where they’re at — the classrooms. It’s an essential factor executive director Molly Lieberman said wouldn’t have been possible without their close relationship with local schools.

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“We always collaborate with our partners really closely to figure out what our programming should include and that is something that has really inspired the growth that we've had because we're always doing what people actually want and need rather than something that sort of sits on the surface,” Lieberman said. 

That intimate relationship relies on Loop it Up working with principals, teachers and counselors to understand, at the root, what’s going on in each individual school and what their hopes and dreams are for the students. It then becomes a question of how Loop it Up can add to those hopes and dreams in a way that is relevant and helpful. 

Day in and day out, students in Title I Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools are given the tools to engage with literacy, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math), cross-curricular and project-based learning as well as skills like gardening and mindfulness techniques.

Public schools across the U.S. have, for years, battled with funding for arts education even though the implementation of arts in education has proven to help children with the development of motor skills, language skills, social skills, decision-making, risk-taking and inventiveness.

In Savannah where the support for art is rampant, the landscape looks a little different. Lieberman said arts education has been prioritized which is a “blessing.”

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“Savannah is a place where art is valued. We have all kinds of wonderful arts and cultural events and we have a wonderful arts community here so I think that that has definitely helped our work.”

And in a society that has raised its focus on the mental health of the youth,  Loop it Up is taking a lead by giving students the tools to navigate life’s challenges.

“What we do in the mindfulness program is acknowledge that we have challenging situations all the time in life, that we have things that happen that are traumatic … big feelings are OK and it's the goal of the program is to have more healthy ways and tools to kind of process what's going on.”

In October, Bank of America awarded Loop it Up a $5,000 grant to help fund the organization’s Mindfulness Zone program, which is currently implemented in eight public schools as well as several early learning centers across Savannah.

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What started out as an art-centered program based solely in Savannah has expanded to South Carolina’s Colleton County school district where the organization serves the Black Street Early Childhood Center using its mindfulness zone.

With growth comes many changes, but Lieberman said they’re focused on keeping the “why” at the center of everything they do: the students. 

“It's always the students. We want everything that we do to truly benefit the students as much as possible. And so we make all of our decisions about how we're going to do everything we do and how we're going to develop partnerships based on the best interests of the kids.

“There are so many great things that go on in schools that people just don't even know about and so all of our work is really an effort to support that and lift that up for the benefit of the student.”

Laura Nwogu is the quality of life reporter for Savannah Morning News. Contact her at LNwogu@gannett.com. Twitter: @lauranwogu_