Five years ago, Jamie Clark moved her kids to Joppa.

She'd grown up in Metropolis, gone to Massac County High School, and had friends whose children already attended Joppa-Maple Grove. She knew some of the staff. She knew the size. She knew the feeling. And she made a decision — this was where she and her kids needed to be.

"The community atmosphere, the small school, the feels-like-family — that's what we needed," she says. "It has been fabulous."

She teaches sixth and seventh grade math, special education math, and sponsors the National Beta Club for grades four through twelve. That last role, in practice, means Jamie is involved in nearly everything — and her Beta Club members are, too.

"Most of my Beta Club members are involved in everything," she says. Volleyball. Basketball. Softball. FFA. Scholar Bowl. Educators Rising, where juniors and seniors go into elementary classrooms to read and help with younger students. And whenever the school needs volunteers for the fall festival, the Christmas program, the spring extravaganza — the answer is the same: where's Jaelyn? Where's Jaylee? Can they come help?

Jaelyn Clark is Jamie's daughter and the Beta Club's current president. Jaylee Anderson is the vice president. Together they are, in Jamie's words, the two she can send a long list of tasks and simply not worry about.

"I don't have to worry when I send that to those two — it's taken care of."

This year, the club is bringing thirteen students to the state convention. Last year, it was three. The growth matters, but Jamie is careful about what she's measuring.

"I'm not focused on placing," she says. "I just want them to attempt things and take it all in."

For many of these students — freshmen and sophomores, first-timers — this is the farthest they've traveled without a parent. An overnight trip. A competition at a level they haven't seen before. Jamie wants them to see it, absorb it, and come back changed by it.

"They're only held back by their own self-limitations," she says. "There's so much they can do if they'll just step forward and try."

That's the lesson. Not about Beta. About everything.

Jaelyn is living proof of it.

She describes her first real experience with volunteer work as disorienting — not knowing if she was helping, not knowing if she was in the way. "Oh, this person needs help here, or I can do this to take this off of this person's hands" — that moment of recognition, she says, is when everything clicked.

She volunteers each summer with an organization that supports individuals with autism and Down syndrome. The work requires more patience than she sometimes has. One afternoon, her patience was wearing thin, and her advisor pulled her aside.

Told her she was doing a good job.

That she was making a difference for those kids and adults in the room.

"It kind of just lifted my spirits up," Jaelyn says. "It told me that I could make an impact everywhere."

Not just in one place. Not just when things go smoothly. Everywhere she chooses to show up.

She doesn't describe her accomplishments in terms of trophies or titles — though she's earned both. The thing she's most proud of, she says, is harder to quantify. "Seeing the relief in people's faces. Seeing the joy in other people's faces through the work that I have done."

Her advice to anyone coming into this kind of work is simple, and she means it.

"Don't get discouraged if you think you're not helping — because you definitely are. You're always going to make a difference somewhere, even if you don't see it. Other people are seeing it."

Jamie's job, the way she sees it, is to create the conditions for that understanding to develop. Let students try. Let them stretch. Let them discover that they're capable of more than they thought before they walked through the door.

The students behind Jaelyn and Jaylee are already watching — already modeling what they see, already learning what leadership looks like in practice.

"It's a family affair," Jamie says. "There's always something new and fresh going on."

And every year, a new group of students figures out where they're needed — and steps in.

That's what gets carried forward.