On graduation day, we all promise to stay in touch.  But all too often, phone calls, letters, and emails fall by the wayside as real life sinks in.  We find jobs in new towns, get married, buy a house, and raise a family.  There is simply not enough time to stay in touch with old friends. 

Brianne Shores graduated from Emmanuel College in 1997, and she had the same experience.  After 10 years of trying unsuccessfully to keep up with her friends, she decided to do something about it.  Brianne found a new customized social networking site called NING.  It allowed her to set up a site for EC alumni, friends, and professors to reconnect while sharing photos and memories.  Although the site is not officially supported by Emmanuel College, it has been a hit.  To date, over individuals have joined, including current EC President Dr. Michael Stewart! 

Brianne recently shared her story - and the story of the new social networking site - with me.  Here's what she had to say:

I started at Emmanuel in the fall of 1992 and graduated with a B.S. in History and a minor in Communications in the Spring of 1997.  During my last two years at Emmanuel, I was an admissions counselor and loved promoting the school.  It is always an easy job promoting something you believe in.   After my husband graduated from Emmanuel, we moved to Birmingham, Alabama.  I started working for Infinity Property and Casualty.  I will celebrate my 10th year anniversary in August.  I just recently took on a new position as an Internal Auditor.  Before this new change, I was a Special Investigator. 

For several years now, I felt there was a need to connect Emmanuel alumni and friends on a regular basis.  I had seen sites like Classmates.com, MySpace and Facebook but they were not just for Emmanuel College and some even charged a fee to be a member.  Of course like most ideas, a thought is about as far as it went until my brother-in-law showed me a site for his alum mater here in Alabama.  It looked like a great solution to keeping in touch with old friends that live all over the world.  A site just for members that attended that particular school. His site became the model for the Emmanuel College site.In the end of March 2008, I put the site together and crossed my fingers that it would go well. 

Less than 4 months later, we have over 500 members that span six decades, 40 different states and 13 countries all sharing memories from their time at Emmanuel.  There are over 3000 pictures, videos, blogs, and forums.  It has been so much fun reconnecting with old friends and finding out about all of the amazing people that have this great school in common.

After graduation, you get busy with life, raising your family and working on your career and ministry.  You sometimes forget how much you truly miss your years at Emmanuel.  I feel this site help bring back those memories, connect old friends and help make new friends.  There are endless possibilities for this site and I would like to expand to provide monthly articles showcasing unique alumni and articles on current and past faculty members.  

Here is what current  users are saying about the site:

• As news of this site spreads, I've had more and more opportunities to re-connect with old friends. I didn't realize just how many EC friends I'd lost touch with as life became busier and busier. I'm so thankful that Brianne created this site for all of us to enjoy! - Dana Evatt Sloan
• I love this web-site! Connecting with old friends is absolutely wonderful.
  The friendships that I made at EC are incredible. Reconnecting with old friends reminds me of a time when life was not so busy and God was at the center of all I did. At EC, choosing to serve God was easy. We prayed before Math, English, and even Economics classes. We sang about Him and worshipped Him each day and our week-ends were consumed with ministry. Twenty years later, God is still the important center of my life, it is just a little harder to make that choice with busy lives. We have more worries, responsibilities, jobs, and three times the laundry! But this reconnection and memoreis help me to realize that the God of my past is also my hope in years to come and that hope makes the choice easy again. - Sabrina Buchanan McCall
• I'm so excited that this site is here! I've reconnected with friends I hadn't been able to find or communicate with in nearly 20 years! I never expected to lose touch with my EC friends, but sadly, those sorts of things happen. Months turn into years, and the older we get, the years fly by even faster. I'm so glad you created this site!!! Thank you a million times! - Susan Guest Childers

 If you want to reconnect with EC friends and professors, click here.