Episcopal Press and News
Provinces Sponsor Youth Social Action Projects
Episcopal News Service. April 24, 1986 [86088]
NEW YORK (DPS, April 24) -- "To a large degree, the Church doesn't think of social action ministry for kids" but that's changing, according to Bobbie Bevill, youth ministries coordinator at the Episcopal Church Center. The change is coming through a series of provincial youth social action projects now in process in the eight domestic provinces of the Episcopal Church.
The program had its origins in requests from youth and their leaders who wanted a way to "do something nice for someone." A September 1984 meeting of a youth ministries' national social action design team made up of one adult layperson, one youth and one clergy representative from each of the domestic provinces drew up a purpose statement which reads: "Our purpose is to create a framework for ongoing Christian social action programs which provide tangible ways to express how much we care about the people of the world." The design team now meets annually.
Last year, there were youth social action programs in Provinces VI, VII and VIII, but this year, all eight provinces have programs. Among them are the following:
- The Province I project is called "FaithWorks 86" and will run from June 28-July 10. The time will be divided between inner-city Bridgeport, Conn. and a mountain-top farm near West Rupert, Vt. The building of Christian community among participants, ages 15-19, is a major purpose of the program, whose bilingual brochure also states, "This community of young people will minister at each location by helping existing social action programs or by undertaking special social action projects as suggested by the local community. An opportunity will be offered for on-going reflection during the two-week program, as participants move from talking about our Christian ideals to acting on these beliefs." The action will include housing rehabilitation; visiting those in prisons, hospitals and nursing homes; tutoring; work in soup kitchen and food distribution programs; work on a dairy farm; clearing wooded paths; and light construction work.
- Province III has set up its youth social action program for work in Panama. Organizer Betty L. Creamer of the Diocese of Pennsylvania has visited Panama and talked with Bishop James Ottley and Glenda McQueen, who is responsible for youth ministry there, in order to insure that participants not only get exposure to a different culture but also contribute -- do something the diocese really needs. As a result, participants in the July 25-Aug. 8 program will begin with an orientation day in Panama City, then go to Santa Clara on the Pacific Coast to replace the roof on a diocesan conference center there. From Santa Clara, they return to the capital, then move on to Bocas Del Toro, an island in the Caribbean, where they will stay with local families and do repairs on the Church of Santa Maria. A day off in Panama City precedes their return to the United States. Creamer already has more applications than she has available places.
- Province V is planning two projects this year, one urban, one rural. According to their brochure, "the areas to be served in 1986 have been selected by a 'bidding' process, through which the community was asked to identify areas of local need, and to demonstrate ways in which the local community would be involved and benefit in the long term by the particular project." The June 21-28 rural project is located in the Diocese of Quincy, in Pike County, Ill., an area with a substantial elderly population and which has been hard hit by unemployment and the agricultural crisis. The urban project will be at St. Peter's Church, in one of the most economically depressed areas of Detroit, Aug. 2-9. St. Peter's, whose congregation includes street people, Jamaicans, Native Americans, university students and staff, suburbanites and a group of the Mar Thoma Church from India, runs one of the largest soup kitchens in Detroit and is the base for a cooperative renovation service for low income families in the surrounding neighborhood. Participants in both projects will be working not only to help individuals but to raise the pride of the respective communities and to raise their own consciousness of those communities' needs.
Funds for the annual national meeting of the design team and some seed money have come from the Office for Ministry Development at the Episcopal Church Center. The rest of the work is done on the provincial level. Bevill calls the projects "really a cooperative effort between us and the provinces," and adds, "We're excited about it."