Whether in school, in the community, or in foreign lands, Brynnan is a doer

NAPLES – For two years, the charity walk on the school track to raise money for victimized women was perpetually in the planning stage. A great idea. But, when?

Scheduling conflicts with the facility abound. A hurricane also threw a wrench into the plans.

Enter Brynnan Kirkpatrick.

The senior at First Baptist Academy (FBA) in Naples took over the school’s Heart and Sole Club at the end of her junior year and made the walk a priority. How about this date? No? How about this one?

“She was persistent,” FBA High School Principal Christina Wennlund said.

 And this past September, members of the FBA community flocked to the track and raised nearly $2,000 for Eden House, a local nonprofit that provides a haven for women who were victims of sex trafficking.

“Brynnan does so well in school, but serving others and being able to help others is really just where her passion is,” Principal Wennlund said.

Brynnan, 18, who attends the private pre-K-12 school in Naples with the help of a Florida education choice scholarship managed by Step Up For Students, is a doer.

She organizes charity walks through the Heart and Sole Club. She works in the school’s aftercare program and volunteers in the church’s childcare program. She travels around the country and abroad on missions, sometimes as many as three a year. She was the team manager of FBA’s girls basketball team. She plays the guitar.

“She’s involved in a variety of activities. She’s so well-rounded,” Principal Wennlund said. “She’s always looking for opportunities in the community to try to meet needs.”

For the last two years, Brynnan has been dual-enrolled at Colorado Christian University and Cedarville (Ohio) University. She took macroeconomics, statistics, and calculus at Colorado Christian and Bible studies at Cedarville.

Brynnan will attend Hillsdale College, a Christian-based liberal arts college in southern Michigan, where she plans to major in English and politics.

“As soon as I visited, I fell in love with it,” she said. “It is just the perfect environment. It is small, which is kind of what I was looking for, and it's very rooted in faith and in the Constitution, which are two things that are very important to me.”

Her career goal is to be a speechwriter. That idea was born during her U.S. history course when she pondered what the American government was originally intended to be.

“I figured that there can't be a difference in politics if nobody's trying to make a difference,” she said. “I don't really see myself being a politician or being somebody that's up there giving the speeches, but I've always enjoyed writing, so I figured that would be the natural course.”

Brynnan has been writing since she was 5.

“She wrote many stories,” her mother, Michelle, said. “She would take a stack of paper and staple it together and make books from the time she was in preschool to elementary school. We had probably a two-foot-high stack of books that she wrote.”

One was a book on Sparky the dog, who goes for a walk around the city.

“It’s illustrated,” Michelle said. “Sparky looks different on every page.”

Michelle had that one laminated.

“I had ideas then,” Brynnan said. “Less book writing now.”

Not that she has the time.

After graduation this spring, Brynnan and her parents, Michelle and Blake, will travel to a town 90 minutes south of Mexico City, where they will offer their services at the Living Hope Orphanage. It’s a continuation of their work as missionaries, which began when Brynnan was in middle school.

She has traveled with her parents to American cities such as Syracuse, New York, and Tucson, Arizona, sharing their faith and helping out in the communities. They also run soccer camps.

Brynnan has traveled to Puerto Rico on three occasions with the church youth group. In 2022, she participated in the cleanup after Hurricane Fiona struck the island.

“We spent a lot of time fixing up the house for this one family, and the mom was just so grateful,” Brynnan said. “We couldn't really understand anything each other was saying, but you could just see that she was grateful for what we were doing, and we were so happy to be there and spend time with her, which was a really great experience.”

Michelle said her daughter’s commitment to serving those in the community stems from the family’s values.

“A big part of it is how I was raised,” Brynnan said. “My dad is one of the most servant-minded people I know, and he kind of always raised me and my siblings that way, which was definitely a blessing. And going to school here, that was always a priority.

“I just believe that's something everybody should be called to do. Everybody should want to help other people. In my opinion, I think that's one of the most important things we can do, to love other people and to serve them.”

Roger Mooney, manager, communications, can be reached at [email protected].