wfn.org | UCC Synod delegates contribute to Minneapolis community

[powellb@ucc.org]

United Church of Christ
General Synod Newsroom
Monday, July 14, 2003
newsroom@ucc.org
http://www.ucc.org

By Irwin Smallwood

MINNEAPOLIS -- How many regional UCC conference ministers does it take to
remove a light fixture from the wall?

Just one ... if you are Lyle Weible, retiring top executive of the United
Church of Christ's Penn Central Conference. Weible did the deed like the
veteran electrician he is not Monday afternoon while working with his wife
Sharon and four friends at the House of Charity in downtown Minneapolis.

They were busily repainting the walls of the dining room at the residential
home for men as part of the General Synod's annual Service Project, a
program started several years ago to give delegates and visitors an
opportunity to put their good intentions into action.

According to UCC Volunteer Ministries executive Kathleen Crockford Ackley,
approximately 140 participants worked on eight different projects across
this sprawling midwestern city Friday. "We're very pleased with the
turnout, which is about five percent of those attending Synod," she said.

House of Charity not only provides shelter for downtrodden men, it offers
them an opportunity to get their lives back on track through a food service
they operate. What Weible and his fellow volunteers were doing was to
freshen up the main dining area. "It gives a practical expression and
fulfillment to actions we take at Synod ," Weible said of their efforts.
"It also gives us a look at the underbelly of a city that is so beautiful
on the outside," his wife Sharon added.

Not too far away at a high-rise family shelter called People Serving
People, Ixca Casillas of Puerto Rico and friends from Virginia, Maryland,
Pennylvania and Michgan were busily stuffing envelopes after earlier grunt
work scrubbing floors.

Casillas, a member of United Evangelical UCC in Rio Piedras, called their
contribution "one way to show the love of God to others. If God is still
speaking, we must let God speak to others through us." Ralph Sims, from St.
Stephen's UCC in Lansing, Mich., agreed and added that "this is one of the
most tangible ways we can show the love of God to people where we go."

The youngest volunteer was four-and-one-half-year-old Alex Frantz of
Duluth, Minn., who was there with his mother, Charlotte, pastor of Pilgrim
Congregational UCC. He was busy as anybody at Community Emergency Services
(CES), pushing boxes of food across the floor and carrying items to their
proper boxes in a mass sorting operation.

CES provides a variety of services to those in need, but the food shelf is
its main program and is the largest in the area. It it located in an
ancient Methodist church building, and the grimy volunteers were sorting
food and other items with light streaming in through beautiful stained
glass windows.

Little Alex's mother had been on a Synod work project before, having worked
on the river levee in St.Louis in 1993. She said she selected the CES
project for them because she wanted one where she and her young son could
work together. "We told him we were going to play grocery store, and he is
happy thinking we are fixing food for people who cannot afford to go to a
regular grocery store," she said.

Mark Rideout, pastor of First Parish UCC in Somersworth, NH, caught the
volunteer fever during General Synod 23 in Kansas City two years ago and
picked the food shelf this time because "it's what we do at home."

Juanita Lindgtren, office manager of Community Emergency Service, perhaps
spoke for the other beneficiaries of the work project volunteers when she
marveled at the work accomplished at her building: "They surprised me in
what they were able to do," she said glowingly. "I had five pages of things
I wanted done, and I couldn't believe that they finished off three full
pages. They removed a lot of dirt making room for more food."

Other services performed by Synod volunteers included reading to children,
refurbishing houses, packing meal packets, cleaning, reprogramming
computers, and light construction work.

###