Fund Finds Church's Youth Teaching Their Elders Lessons in Generosity
Episcopal News Service. December 15, 1999 [99-192]
Jerry Hames, Jerry Hames is the editor of Episcopal Life, the church's national monthly newspaper.
(ENS) It began with kids' nickles, dimes and dollars, tithed from summertime allowances and money earned from chores. Teenagers added funds tithed from summer jobs. It made a tidy sum, to be given, in a lesson in stewardship, to a school for blind children in Africa.
But the Diocese of Utah didn't let matters end there. With their children leading them, adults in the diocese took up Bishop Carolyn Irish's challenge to raise funds for the school, seeking to meet the goal of $1,200 needed to finance a month's worth of "the basic necessities of food, clothing and medicine" for the school's 175 students. The request, by St. Lucy's School in Kenya, is a Project for Hope sponsored by the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief.
Officials in half of Utah's 20 parishes decided to multiply their young people's collections by 10 times before forwarding the money to the diocesan office.
That action, in turn, inspired the diocesan convention last October to multiply that figure by 10, resulting in a $62,000 -- yes, $62,000 -- check for the Presiding Bishop's Fund, officials of which immediately notified St. Lucy's School.
"It was wonderful to do this, but it also brought home just what tithing means. When all was said and done we learned a lot about the idea of stewardship," said the Rev. Jeff Sells, editor of Diocesan Dialogue, the diocesan newspaper.
"We are just delighted," said Joyce Hogg, the Presiding Bishop's Fund's director of networks and special projects, who quickly added that Utah's young people weren't the only ones coming to the aid of those in need.
Across the nation, other children's and youth groups engaged in a multitude of activities in recent months to raise money for the Presiding Bishop's Fund.
"I get turned on by what the kids do," said Hogg. "I think it's really amazing, for example, that 7-year-old children want to raise money for people in country they've never seen."
Through fundraisers, sacrificial offerings and pledges, young people raised thousands for the Presiding Bishop's Fund in the past year.
At one Episcopal school, students "paid" $450 for the privilege of wearing jeans instead of school uniforms, and sent the proceeds for disaster relief in Central America. At another Episcopal school in Dallas, students raised $3,500 by "sacrificing" something they would normally buy.
At St. Mary's School in Raleigh, North Carolina, boarding students raised $650 from a "penny wars" game and another $600 during a sustenance day when they ate only bread, beans, rice and water.
Juniors at Oakland Mills High School, Columbia, Maryland, sent $54 from proceeds of a car wash and bake sale to assist Kosovo refugees. A competition between 30 boys and girls Thirty children from St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Hinesville, Georgia, raised another $80 for victims of the Kosovo tragedy.
Parishioners at All Saints-by-the-Sea, Santa Barbara, California, asked parishioners to support a youth fast and received 250 pledges ranging from $2 to $500 for people made homeless in Honduras by Hurricane Mitch. During the fast, the youth watched the video produced by the fund.
"Doing this makes me think about what other people feel and how lucky I am to have what I have," said 16-year-old Ariel Curtin. "By fasting, it's like I'm feeling what they feel every day."
After the 24-hour fast, the youth, who also assembled 200 health kits, celebrated the Eucharist and enjoyed a baked potato supper.
Three thousand miles away, in Darien, Connecticut, a 7-year-old boy's dream to help needy children in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic after Hurricane Georges resulted in a bike-a-thon that raised $500. Eighteen neighborhood children, aged 2 to 12, participated on rollerblades, bicycles and tricycles.
Another 7-year-old mailed to the fund a scrawled note, with money he made from selling lemonade, and requested it be sent to refugees in Kosovo.
These victims were also on the minds of many others. In Brenham, Texas, children of St. Peter's Episcopal Church sold artwork, clay crosses and plants, while in Ramsey, New Jersey, a children's outreach group of St. John's Memorial Church raised $573 and a special collection by the congregation added another $3,028 for those uprooted by the war.
Some letters are sent to Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold. "We decided we were not powerless to help [people in need] and took appropriate measures," said six children from a cathedral Sunday school. "We made a poster, gathered fruit and baked goods and asked our church community to make a freewill offering.
"We are changed by helping people in need," they told him. "Becoming servants of Christ let us come together and make a difference.
"P.S. Please write back and give us more ideas," they ended.