wfn.org | Episcopal youth teaching lessons in generosity

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Kathryn McCormick
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99-192

Fund finds church's youth teaching their elders lessons in 
generosity 

by Kathryn McCormick and Jerry Hames

     (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.

Helping those they've never seen

     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.

--Kathryn McCormick is associate director of News and Information 
for the Episcopal Church; Jerry Hames is the editor of Episcopal 
Life, the church's national monthly newspaper.