Coronavirus Response

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Congregations for Children (C4C)

Stories

All Children are Our Children: The Community’s Role in Education Webinar

On December 1, 2020 an excellent Zoom webinar was presented by Knollwood Baptist Church in Charlotte as part of their ongoing “Faith in the City” series.  “All Children are Our Children: The Community’s Role in Education” focused on the partnership among the Winston-Salem/Forsyth Public School System, Galilee Missionary Baptist Church, and the nonprofit organization “Imprint Cares” to create remote learning centers throughout the county to enhance educational opportunities for low income children.

The centers are located in parts of the county where they are accessible to low income children and their families and they are staffed by active and retired teachers and other qualified and trained adult volunteers who serve as tutors. Churches in our NC Conference are encouraged to consider ways to use this model to expand our church-school-community partnerships in support of our public school children. Indeed, “All Children are Our Children!”  

Watch the Recording
Passcode: 5sMM@2Fn

Shared with permission.

Soapstone UMC Creates Remote Learning Space for Local Students

Soapstone United Methodist Church in Raleigh (Capital District) began the “Soapstone Schoolhouse” in September 2020 to meet the needs of local students and families who made the sudden shift to remote learning this year. With the church sanctuary and classrooms unused by their traditional ministries, they were able to offer their space to 23 students in the first session, and 29 students in the second session, who came each school day to turn the Soapstone worship space into a gathering place for remote learning.

Photo taken by Danny Peck.

The large space in the sanctuary allowed this group to participate in school in the midst of other students while still maintaining social distance protocols, but also to enjoy fellowship during their breaks. Students from third grade through twelfth grade took advantage of this one-room schoolhouse approach to a learning space and used their down time together for everything from playing four square and basketball outside to learning from adult church members how to knit (and teaching the volunteers how to play “Among Us”).

Photo taken by Danny Peck.

A conference C4C Community Connectivity Grant helped with the big WiFi service and equipment upgrade necessitated by 30+ simultaneous video connections and helped make this dream a reality for the students who were otherwise missing the normal interaction of in-person learning, the parents who still needed to be at work, and the faithful members of Soapstone who were looking for new ways to serve in the ever-changing landscape of 2020.  

Food Truck in Alamance County Feeds Students

“When you talk about children who are hungry … that’s a sore spot for everybody. I think it worked because we had this partnership with everybody.”

Margaret Skulnik

The Congregations for Children (C4C) committee at First UMC in Graham worked with the nutritionists at Alamance County Schools to procure and set up a food truck. First UMC partnered with other faith communities in the area to raise the funds, purchase the truck, and get it set up and ready to serve.

The original idea was to feed children in the summer months when access to free and reduced lunch was not available. The truck is now being used to feed students who are learning virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Margaret Skulnik, who chairs the C4C committee, and Rev. Claire Clyburn, the pastor of First UMC, share how the partnership with Alamance County Schools came about and how this ministry has impacted both the community and the church.

For more information on Congregations for Children, visit the C4C website.

Video: Carolina Hunger Initiative at UNC HPDP.

C4C Partnerships

Typically, when a church family commits to becoming a Congregations for Children (C4C) Partner with a local public school, a list of service possibilities follows. How can our church help these children and teachers? How can we show them the God we love?

We often miss what these relationships can do for our churches and volunteers! We miss the opportunities for us to see God in them.

When Gayle Midyette, one of the Sound District C4C Coordinators showed up at the local hospital for surgery, her partner school family showed up for her!

Photo taken by Gayle Midyette.

Staff and parents from Oaks Road Elementary School in Craven County, met their coordinator from Garber UMC before sunrise in the parking lot to pray and wish her well. Relationships developed through our C4C partnerships, change lives…theirs and ours.

Find out how you can partner with a local public school by contacting NCCUMC Director of Congregations for Children, David Rockefeller, at drockefeller@nccumc.org.

Article written by Kim Rice Smith

C4C Success Story: Sharon UMC

Sharon UMC is partnered with Griggs Elementary School in Poplar Branch and Jarvisburg Elementary in Jarvisburg. Sharon has truly been engaged in the lives of children by providing books for the “Give Five – Read Five” summer reading program, as well as funding Each One Read One Reading programs during the school year. They have provided school supplies as well as basic needs items for children throughout the school year. Many of the good folks at Sharon volunteer as proctors for end of grade testing, volunteers as readers and mentors and, during a time when we see more teacher assistant positions being defunded, they act as volunteer teacher aids. They are a visible presence in the school, eating with children and assisting the children and staff in creative relationships, and through pragmatic daily support. Sharon is transforming the world around them!

C4C Success Story: Westview UMC

In the spring of 2013, Westview UMC reached out to Malpass Corner Elementary, located four miles from the church, asking what the church could do to help them. This led to the development of a partnership which provides weekend food backpacks for 67 students each week as well as family food boxes for these students during each vacation from school such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and spring breaks. The congregation has also furnished both schools with hats, coats and gloves during the winter months and 744 summer reading books! All this is accomplished by a congregation with an average weekly worship attendance of around 40. Through these missions Westview UMC has allowed God to show them what he can do with a “few” willing hearts and willing hands. Westview UMC’s is also providing some support to West Pender Middle school. They are truly a “little, big church!”