“Everything I’ve done in the community is a result of what Jesus has done in my life and wanting to show His love to others.”

That’s how 34-year-old Amanda Stuard describes her desire to assist the community for the more than decade-plus since her and husband Chris returned to Brownwood.

“We moved back in 2012 to work alongside Coggin Avenue Baptist Church and do a ministry outreach called Love Brownwood,” Stuard said. “I worked for about seven years alongside with my husband, so I have a passion for students and specifically to see teenagers come to know and walk with the Lord. It just fit right in with the passion I have for teenagers that are hurting. We worked a lot with teenagers through the years and we both taught parenting classes to parents whose kids had been taken and put in foster care in an effort to reunify them.”

Stuard now assists with the WAY Summit, which is having its third gathering on Sept. 30.

“The vision of the WAY Summit is Malaina Jesko’s and I just came along to help her any way I can,” Stuard said. “That is her thing and I’m her secondhand person. I do a lot of the work behind the scenes, but I’m also leading a panel and I help plan the discussion topics and bring in the speakers.”

The first WAY Summit was planned for April 2020 but was postponed until March 2021 due to COVID. The second event was held in October 2022.

“It’s for seventh through college-aged girls and we encourage them to bring their parents or guardians or mentors with them,” Stuard said of the WAY Summit. “There’s a wide range of topics we cover from friendship to loneliness and insecurity. Most importantly, we want to give students the hope of the gospel and let them know that they’re never alone and God’s always with them and introduce them to a relationship with Him if they don’t already have one and then encourage them to grow in that. Now a days it’s hard to be a teenager so we just want to encourage them.”

When Chris Stuard eventually became the junior high minister at Coggin, the First Blessing program then came into existence in 2016.

“A man outside of Temple brings hundreds of pairs of shoes,” Stuard said of the program. “In the last few years we’ve had anywhere from 200 to 300 people including families come through and they get a pair of shoes for $3 and we serve a breakfast and try to build relationships and pray for them. We give out a kid’s Bible and we still do that ministry which has branched off from Love Brownwood with church members who have helped lead that.”

Stuard also has a photography business, has worked for five years with Stitch Fix – a community of more than 3,000 stylists who inspire women, men and kids to discover their own personal style – and is pursuing a Master’s degree in Clinical and Mental Health that she hopes to finish in 2025 with a goal of becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor.

“I want to work with kids and adolescences in our community,” she said.

Stuard and Emily Hutson have also teamed up to host an art camp, which will be held the last week of July.

“We’re having two sessions, one in the morning for younger kids and one in the evening,” she said. “I love art, specifically the photography, and she’s an artist and is really involved in that. We want to encourage the budding artists in our community and have fun hanging out with them.”

The Stuards have three children, 8-year-old Chapel, 7-year-old Micah, and 2-year-old Blakely.