When Sarah McNeal -Weaver was young, she knew she wanted to grow up and have a career that allowed her to help others. She didn’t quite know what that would look like until the aftermath of 9/11, which happened when she was a sophomore in high school.
“After 9/11, there was a lot of information about social work and the helping profession and the deep need for counselors and support,” she said. “I thought, ‘You know what? This would be a good career path for me.’ And I’m glad I did it.”
After Weaver graduated from Dublin High School in 2004, she went to college for social work. “I knew that I was rural to the roots, and so I wanted to go to Tarleton,” she said.
During her time at Tarleton, Weaver was president of the Social Work Association, and worked to provide resources to students about HIV and AIDS. “We were able to kind of start implementing differentprogramsatTarleton, just about safe sex and awareness and different things like that and through that [including a free HIV and AIDStestingdayoncampus],” she said.
After Weaver graduated with her bachelors in 2008, the organization that she worked with for the free testing offered her a job to come on as their social worker. “It was really a blessing, because I met them through campus and got to do some of that work,” she said. “I was pretty passionate about working with adults, and I thought it would be a great avenue where I was able to help families.” The job required her to leave Dublin and move to Fort Worth. “I cried the entire drive,” she said.
She and her dad stopped at Sam’s Club for some supplies for her new apartment. “My dad was a dairyman my whole life. I remember him pulling out of Sam’s Club in his dirty gooseneck trailer, and I thought, ‘I am never going to make it here,’” she said. “But I decided I’d like to give it two years. And I did.”
Weaver enjoyed her new position working to educate the public on HIV and AIDs, andprovidehelpandresources to those affected. HIV and AIDs can affect people of all walks of life and sexual orientations, and Weaver worked to destigmatize the diseases. “It was really enjoyable for me to pave the way in helping people understand that there’s no shame attached to it, and helping them find resources,” she said. But like many social work jobs, Weaver’s job had a high burnout rate. “It was very exhausting, draining work,” she said. “I loved it, but I did burn out.”
Weaver left the job in 2010 and went back to school to earn her teaching certificate. “I thought that I wanted to teach, but then I got a long term sub job at a Christian school in Fort Worth, and realized I did not want to teach,” she said. “That was not going to be my calling.”
So she went back into social work, applying for a job at the nonprofit organization Big Brothers, Big Sisters, which had a branch in Stephenville. Weaver saw the job as a way to return home, while still pursuing her passion. She got the job, and she moved back to Stephenville in 2011. “Big Brothers, Big Sisters is a nonprofit mentoring agency,” she said. “We take children in the community that need mentors for whatever reason — It could be that they’re having problems at home, it could be that they got new glasses and they’re struggling with confidence in the classroom, it could be that they have a lot of siblings and they just want some one on one attention, it could be that English is the second language in the home. Whatever their issue is, they want a mentor to spend a little extra time with.”
The organization will match the children up with a mentor with similar interests and life experience, and they have lunch or hang out and do something out in the community once a week.
The nonprofit helped Weaver advance her career. “They paid for me to go get my master’s degree, so I have a master’s degree in counseling psychology,” she said. “While I was obtaining that, I got married and had two beautiful boys.” Weaver and her thenhusband moved to Dublin in 2013 and started their family here. Their two sons, Jhett and Jax, are now 9 and 11. “We’ve divorced now, but we take a lot of pride in our co-parenting,” Weaver said.
Weaver started at Big Brothers Big Sisters on the social work side, and worked her way up to executive director, a position she’s held for the past ten years. “I’m in charge of recruitment and fundraising,” she said. “And my sister is a social worker as well, and she has come in and taken over on the social work side of things, and she has so much heart and passion for it.”
Weaver plans to remain with the nonprofit for the foreseeable future. “We’re really growing,” she said. “I think that people are seeing my sister and I put a lot of work into it, and they trust us with their children. They trust that the mentoring relationships that we’re putting their children in are healthy and sustainable.”
Weaver balances her work at Big Brothers Big Sisters with a job as an adjunct professor at Tarleton, teaching however many classes they need each semester. “Staying busy and giving back to my community and my family is what brings me joy,” Weaver said. “If I’m not busy, I get really bored. I work around the clock, but I think that the reason I do that is because I genuinely enjoy what I do.”
When she’s not working, Weaver is very involved with her family. “My boys are so involved in everything, so we’re always on the run,” she said. Since COVID, the ability to work remotely has been convenient for Weaver. “I can work from wherever, so a lot of times you catch me working from the car or at the ballfield. Or you’ll catch me on my phone taking care of things in a parking lot, or at Starbucks or places with free WiFi for the hour when my boys are at practice.” Weaver also started another nonprofit, a youth tackle league called the Junior Texans (in partnership with Tarleton) for students in the area. She also serves as the pageant director for the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. When she has some time to herself, Weaver enjoys spending time in nature hiking or biking, as well as cooking and baking. “Those are my stress relievers,” she said. She also loves to travel. I feel like experiences are the best gift that we can give our children,” she said. “My stepmom was a flight attendant growing up, and she and my dad really put a lot of emphasis on travel and exploring the world. We love to play on vacations, even if they’re small. We just went down to Fredericksburg a few months ago and hiked Enchanted Rock and spent the night. So just exploring the world and exploring Texas.” Weaver’s mother Sandy McNeal lives in Stephenville, her father Rod McNeal lives in Dublin and herstepmotherCaseyMcNeal lives in Dallas to be close to the airport for her flight attendant job.
Throughout her life, Weaver has found inspiration in people’s ability to create a brighter future. “I would say that I’m a pretty optimistic person, so I always have hope,” she said. “I always think, like, what seeds am I planting to change the future? As I’m investing in my kids or making them do things they don’t want to do, such as chores, I remind them that the skill set that we’re learning is to invest in the future. That’s something that my parents instilled in me from a pretty young age, is that all the seeds that we sow right now are going to be what we reap in the future.”
Weaver is also inspired by her faith. “I feel like the most pivotal change in my life was while I was going through my divorce and I built a real relationship with God,” she said. “I had always know the Lord, but I dug in, and that changes everything — my relationships, my parenting — everything.”
Weaver’s advice to Dublin graduates is to be proud of where they come from. “They should take pride that they came from a rural area where the majority of us are raised in close knit families — even if our families are broken, they’re still close knit — and that we have great support systems,” she said. “They should just take a lot of pride in where they came from as they’re going out into the world, and always carry their hometown roots with them; always carry their kindness and their gentleness as they enter the city or parts of the world that aren’t as soft. Just to try to always carry the Dublin mentality, to be kind and gracious and thoughtful.”