wfn.org | PHEWA Networks Announce Award Recipients

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11-May-1998 
98172 
 
    PHEWA Networks Announce Award Recipients 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.-Three networks of the Presbyterian Health, Education and 
Welfare Association have announced the winners of their annual awards.  The 
recipients will be honored during the upcoming 210th General Assembly in 
Charlotte, June 13-20. 
 
    Presbyterian Network on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (PNAODA) 
 
    PNAODA has selected the Rev. David Zuverink to receive its 1998 David 
Hancock Award and The Samaritan Fund of the Presbyterian Church of 
Dansville, N.Y., to receive its 1998 Margaret Fuad Award. 
 
    Zuverink is associate director for the Office of Health Ministries 
U.S.A. for the National Ministries Division in Louisville and has been 
instrumental in bringing alcohol and drug abuse and addiction issues to the 
attention of the denomination. 
 
    The David Hancock Award is named after a Presbyterian minister who was 
instrumental in getting the denomination involved with issues of alcoholism 
more than 40 years ago. 
 
    The Margaret Fuad Award is named after a Presbyterian laywoman from 
Visalia, Calif., who was instrumental in getting her church involved with 
people in recovery more than 40 years ago.  The award honors a congregation 
or volunteer each year who best exemplifies Fuad's commitment. 
 
    Betty Minemier of the Dansville church will be at the Assembly to 
accept the award and tell the Dansville church's story. 
 
    Urban Presbyterian Pastors' Association (UPPA) 
 
    The Presbyterian Church of the Cross in Greensboro, N.C., has been 
named winner of UPPA's Urban Church Award. 
 
    Established in 1963 in an all-white middle-income neighborhood, Church 
of the Cross soon found itself sitting in a community that had become 
racially and economically diverse.  By 1970, with the neighborhood in total 
economic decline and crime rampant, the church refused to follow other 
churches to the suburbs and committed itself to stay in the neighborhood. 
 
    During two tumultuous decades, the congregation provided a stabilizing 
force in its neighborhood, hosting voter registration events, serving as a 
safe place for interracial and intercultural dialogue, organizing residents 
to demand better city services and working with Habitat for Humanity on 
housing projects.  It houses a summer farmers' market and a developmental 
child-care center for low-income working parents. 
 
    The pastor is the Rev. James F. Miller and the associate pastor is the 
Rev. Elizabeth Dale Walker. 
 
    Community Ministries and Neighborhood Organizations (COMANO) 
 
    In 1990, under the auspices of the "I Have a Dream" Foundation, two 
Presbyterian congregations - Immanuel Presbyterian Church, a white suburban 
congregation in McLean, Va., and Garden Memorial Presbyterian Church, a 
predominantly African-American inner-city church in Washington, D.C. - 
undertook a special new ministry together. 
 
    They adopted a class of then sixth-graders, promising them that if they 
graduated from high school, the churches would guarantee the cost of a 
college education. 
 
    In June of 1997, 31 "Dreamers" graduated from high school, and the 
churches are sending 30 of them on to college.  The congregations are 
continuing to assist several others who are still trying to graduate and 
will soon open a Family Life Resource Center to provide after-school 
programs, tutoring, scouting, AA meetings, parenting classes and other 
community services. 
 
    The two congregations share services, pastors and programs and also 
support the work of a missionary in Zambia. 
 
    For the fruits of their extraordinary partnership, Immanuel 
Presbyterian Church and Garden Memorial Presbyterian Church have been named 
winners of COMANO's Community Ministry Award. 
 
    Immanuel's pastor is the Rev. John W. Sonnenday.  Garden Memorial's 
pastor is the Rev. Jacqueline Taylor. 

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