{"id":1278,"date":"2021-09-24T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nccumc.org\/c4c\/?p=1278"},"modified":"2021-09-24T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T12:00:00","slug":"c4c-amid-a-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccumc.org\/c4c\/2021\/09\/c4c-amid-a-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"C4C Amid a Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u201cIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times\u2026\u201d Charles Dickens opened his novel, \u201cA Tale of Two Cities,\u201d with this now infamous quote in 1859. Over 160 years later, we could make a case for describing the ministries of Congregations for Children as \u201cthe best of times <em>amid<\/em> the worst of times.\u201d Members of our NCCUMC Congregations for Children Committee report so many faithful and generous partnerships between local churches and neighboring elementary schools that we can extract other phrases from Dickens\u2019 opening paragraph: \u201cit was the season of light;\u201d \u201cit was the spring of hope.\u201d A few examples of the C4C projects and activities that shed light in the darkness of this pandemic across the Conference include churches that\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>coordinated with their fire station, police station,&nbsp;and other churches in their community by purchasing mobile internet hot spots for students, raising money to buy iPads, and setting up places for students to do virtual learning &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>bought holiday food and gifts for families in need<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>helped find appropriate housing for a family of five who were living&nbsp;in one room with no stove or other necessities&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>sponsored a drive-through for free food each Saturday for students and their families<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>provided food through the Backpack Buddies program for children who are engaged in on-site learning to take home over the weekend<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>provided its partner school with masks, face shields, plexiglass dividers, hand sanitizer, antibacterial cleaners, and wipes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>purchased postage for teachers to mail information to parents&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>provided hand-made masks for the teachers and staff&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>sent flowers to the food service staff for their work providing&nbsp;two meals a day for students attending school virtually&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>placed notes of appreciation and small gifts in teacher and staff mailboxes monthly<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>gave each child in their partner school a new&nbsp;book to take home at Thanksgiving &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>partnered with Camp Don Lee to allow thirty students to attend camp two days a week for virtual learning and other&nbsp;activities<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>upgraded their internet access and converted their sanctuary into a learning space Monday through Friday \u2013 complete with volunteer tutors \u2013 so students could participate in online learning<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>raised funds to purchase Chromebooks for students to engage in online learning from their homes and satellite learning sites&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>provided welcome-back notes with enclosed gift cards to every member of their partner school\u2019s faculty and staff on their first day back in September<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>held a community-wide fund-raising campaign to purchase and donate to the school system a food truck so the school system\u2019s child nutrition office could deliver food to children and their families<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026and the list goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Congregations for Children began as the shared vision of Bishop Hope Morgan Ward and State Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson to establish partnerships between local UMC churches and their neighboring public elementary schools to promote K-3 literacy, help to meet basic needs of children living in poverty, encourage volunteerism in schools by caring adults, and advocate for public education in the public square. Eight years later, amid a pandemic that temporarily shuttered church doors, forced public schools to pivot to online teaching and learning, prevented adult volunteers from continuing in-person mentoring and tutoring of young children inside school buildings, and increased the basic needs of low-income children who were struggling already, churches throughout the conference face these challenges daily with fortitude and creativity, demonstrating that they are still the hands and feet of Christ in their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we celebrate those C4C volunteers across the Conference who continue, undaunted by the challenges of a worldwide pandemic, to live into the C4C motto: \u201cHelping Children Affected by Poverty \u2013 Supporting NC Public Schools.\u201d Won\u2019t you join us?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times\u2026\u201d Charles Dickens opened his novel, \u201cA Tale of Two Cities,\u201d with this now infamous quote in 1859. Over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6,7],"class_list":["post-1278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","tag-children","tag-congregations-for-children"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>C4C Amid a Pandemic | Congregations for Children | North Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nccumc.org\/c4c\/2021\/09\/c4c-amid-a-pandemic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"C4C Amid a Pandemic | Congregations for Children | North Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times\u2026\u201d Charles Dickens opened his novel, \u201cA Tale of Two Cities,\u201d with this now infamous quote in 1859. 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