đ¨OHIO – Northwestđ¨
Something Important Is Happening at Anthony Wayne â and Families Deserve the Full Story
Over the past few days, Anthony Wayne families have shared screenshots, flyers, and posts about a high-school âcommunity engagementâ project that asked students to raise money for The Nest, Bowling Green.
At first glance, it looked like a simple, feel-good fundraiser.
But once families laid the screenshots side by side, a much bigger and more familiar pattern emerged.
A pattern many of you have been talking about for months â a pattern SEA has documented in previous posts about Redemption Church, Pastor Steven Whitlow, and the expanding ministry/business network surrounding Anthony Wayne students.
Here is how this new incident fits into that story.
1ď¸âŁ The Nest BG is not a neutral nonprofit.
The Nest presents itself as a support system for young parents, and that is absolutely a worthy cause.
But their own materials show that The Nest is a Christian ministry, and access to support requires compliance with faith-based programming, including:
đweekly Christian parenting classes
đmandatory one-on-one discipleship mentorship
đrequired service hours for the ministry itself
đmonitoring of grades, schedules, and GPA
This is not the structure of a secular social-service program.
It is a ministry model, one that places religious obligations on young and often vulnerable parents in exchange for help.
Families were never told their children were fundraising for an organization with these requirements.
2ď¸âŁ The fundraiser connects directly back to Redemption Church and Pastor Steven Whitlow.
This is where the story intersects with SEAâs earlier posts.
Several raffle baskets came from Urban Air and Snapology â both co-owned by Pastor Steven Whitlow, the leader of Redemption Church.
This is the same church network we have previously documented for:
đyouth-targeted ministry efforts
đdeep business-ministry overlap
đrepeated attempts to access AW students through âserviceâ opportunities
đteen gatherings and discipleship events involving AW students
But it doesnât stop there.
The Pike family, who help lead The Nest:
đattend Redemption Church
đhost Adub4Jesus, a teen ministry attended by AW students
đhelped promote the fundraiser through their daughter
So the fundraiser was not simply community businesses supporting a class.
It was church-connected businesses, owned by the pastor, feeding into a fundraiser for a ministry led by church members, promoted by students connected to that same churchâs youth network.
This is the exact interconnected structure many families have been sensing but didnât have language for â until now.
3ď¸âŁ A school administrator amplified the fundraiser.
One screenshot shows Justin Zemanski, Ed.D., an AW administrator, publicly promoting the fundraiser and tagging district-aligned accounts.
When a district administrator boosts a project, it reads to families as school-approved and secularly appropriate.
*Edit to add – Justin Zemanski, Ed.D., an AW administrator, allegedly didnât know that the Nest had such stipulations.
But families were not told:
đthe organization was religious
đthe program involved required faith-based mentorship
đthe fundraiser supported a ministry connected to the same church network already working to reach AW students
That is exactly why public schools must remain neutral.
4ď¸âŁ Why families feel uneasy â and why they are right to ask questions.
When all the screenshots are viewed together, the story becomes unmistakable:
đA school class was directed to raise money for a Christian ministry, not a neutral charity.
đThe ministry imposes faith-based conditions on vulnerable young parents.
đThe fundraiser received donations from businesses co-owned by a local pastor leading a church already linked to youth-targeted outreach.
đLeadership from The Nest belongs to that same Redemption Church network.
đTheir teen ministry (Adub4Jesus) is actively recruiting AW students.
đA school administrator publicly promoted the fundraiser.
This is not an isolated incident.
It is another example of the same churchâbusinessâministry network repeatedly finding its way into AW student spaces, just as SEA has been documenting.
And this time, it happened through a school assignment.
SEAâs Position
We fully support helping young parents.
We support community service.
We support empathy and engagement.
đŤBut public schools cannot act as fundraising arms for ministries, especially ministries tied to church networks already targeting local teens â and especially when participation in that ministry requires religious compliance.
SEA urges Anthony Wayne to:
-implement a transparent nonprofit-vetting policy
-require disclosure of religious affiliation for any organization tied to assignments
-prohibit school-directed fundraising for ministries
-train staff on churchâstate neutrality
Families deserve transparency.
Students deserve boundaries.
This community deserves better protection than this.r
What people are saying:
- Secular Education Association: Tagging for visibility-
Anthony Wayne Local Schools
Facebook User
Facebook User
Facebook User - Facebook User: Ummmm isn’t there supposed to be a separation between schools and religion? My son is a junior at AW and, thus far, I haven’t known about this. Now that I DO, this should be shut down!!
- Facebook User: As an Anthony Wayne school board member, at least, until the end of the month, yeah, I am appalled by this. This is just another attempt to promote Christian religion into schools. ďżź and Iâm actually shocked that Zemanski would condone this or promote it. ďżź
- Facebook User: Facebook User
- Facebook User: Thereâs also an important point nobody seems willing to acknowledge: so-called âsecularâ organizations arenât neutral either. Many of them openly advance ideological agendas, worldview assumptions, or social messages that push students in a particular direction â including away from traditional religious beliefs. None of that technically violates churchâstate separation, and everyone knows it. Yet those partnerships get framed as community engagement or character building, while any group connected to people of faith is instantly treated as suspicious or dangerous.
If the concern is transparency and consistency, then it needs to apply across the board. Either all nonprofits with worldview commitments require disclosure, or none of them do. You canât declare one group ânon-neutralâ simply because its volunteers attend church, while giving a free pass to other organizations whose values are every bit as influential but happen to be secular.
The Nest isnât hiding anything. It exists to support young parents who want mentorship, structure, and help â and participation is voluntary. Calling that âreligious impositionâ while ignoring the agendas of secular partner groups isnât neutrality. Itâs selective scrutiny.
If weâre going to have standards, letâs make sure theyâre consistent and actually protect students, not just weaponized against ministries doing genuine, tangible good in the community.
- Facebook User: Thereâs a lot of dramatic framing in that post, but almost none of it reflects what The Nest actually does or how these programs work in real life.
The Nest is not some hidden pipeline or religious recruitment scheme. Itâs a support program for young parents who want structure, mentorship, and practical help. Everything they offer is voluntary. No one is forced to participate, no one is denied help because they donât adopt a certain belief system, and no one is required to âcomplyâ with anything beyond the basic participation standards youâd find in any goal-oriented support program. Calling ordinary mentoring and parenting classes âreligious requirementsâ is a deliberate stretch meant to sound sinister.
Itâs also normal for nonprofits to be run by people who attend local churches. That doesnât make them church operations. It means theyâre community members who care enough to build something to help young families. Connecting every single personal relationship into some giant coordinated network is conspiracy thinking, not evidence.
And implying that a high school class was âdirected to raise money for a ministryâ is simply false. Students often choose local organizations on their own, and supporting an organization that helps young parents isnât a violation of church-state separation. A public school cannot endorse religious instruction, but nothing in this fundraiser exposed students to religious content, required religious activity, or promoted a church. It was a donation drive supporting material needs like diapers, clothing, childcare resources, and basic life stability.
The Nest doesnât âtarget vulnerable teensâ â it serves young moms who ask for help. Trying to frame that as predatory just because people involved attend the same church is unfair to the families being helped and to the people giving their time to support them.
If someone wants to have an honest conversation about transparency policies or nonprofit vetting, thatâs fine. But misrepresenting motives, exaggerating connections, and assigning malicious intent to community volunteers doesnât protect anyone. It just attacks a group thatâs actually helping local young parents when they need it most.
- Facebook User: Oh the irony……one that shouldnât be ignored. We constantly hear the claim that pro-life people âdonât care about women or babies after birth.â Yet when a group actually steps in to support young moms, help them stay in school, give them stability, and provide practical resources, that same effort gets attacked as suspicious or harmful.
You canât have it both ways. If the concern is really about young women having options and being supported, then an organization doing exactly that should be welcomed, not targeted. The truth is uncomfortable for some people: when thereâs a real alternative that helps a young woman choose life and still pursue her education, it exposes the lie that abortion is her only viable path forward.
Thatâs whatâs really driving a lot of this outrage. Not âchurch-state concerns.â Not ânetworks.â Just the fact that a pro-life organization is doing the very thing critics say doesnât exist â supporting mother and child after birth â and it undermines their narrative.
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