On Wednesday, the IMPACT 360 students,
several staff members, and some others who often associate with IMPACT 360 left Pine Mountain heading toward the original Chick-fil-A DwarfHouse in Hapeville, Georgia. We arrived there in time for breakfast and ate happily while Mrs. Trudy White told us the story of how Chick-fil-A’s chicken sandwich got its start in that very building. It was amazing to hear the story of how Mr. Cathy continued to persevere with his business even though he went through obstacles such as losing his two brothers and one of his restaurants burning down. He also didn’t stop trying. As he was attempting to invent the chicken sandwich, he would try something and ask costumers if they liked it. Rather than being discouraged every time they came back and said that it needed one thing or another, he would adapt and change his recipe until he ended up with the Chick-fil-A sandwich which is famous all over the country. After hearing this first part of the story, we headed to our next destination.
The next place we stopped was outside of a little building where the first Chick-fil-A office had been. The company grew quickly though and once the corporate team reached 60 they had to move into a new, bigger building which is the one they currently occupy.
After seeing the first office building, we went to see the first mall location. This Chick-fil-A is located in Greenbriar Mall and is still there today even though it’s moved positions to better accommodate the growing interest in a delicious chicken sandwich. It was interesting to hear about the way that God directed Mr. Cathy at this point in Chick-fil-A’s history. He really thought that the best business move would be to have mall locations, but not necessarily be anywhere else. Well, others in the company suggested that they move out into free standing locations also. After much prayer, this is what happened. Clearly, this was God’s plan because recently mall attendance has decreased, but Chick-fil-A is regularly visited because of its free standing locations.
The last place we visited was the corporate headquarters. We all had a lot of fun “exploring” the building and drooling over the many cars. We had a short session on leadership from Dr. Phil Alsup, WinShape Sr. Director that we all enjoyed immensely. We delved a little deeper into the summer reading book Spiritual Leadership by Blackaby and Blackaby. We briefly discussed how spiritual leadership is basically that of servant hood because that is the model that Jesus gave to us.
After a long day of learning Chick-fil-A history, we went out to Cathy Ranch and spent an enjoyable evening fellowshipping and relaxing together as a community.
-IMPACT 360 Class of 2011
—Matti Chandler