wfn.org | Elon Homes youth work team busy at UCC Synod meeting

[George Conklin <gconklin@wfn.org>]

United Church of Christ
Office of Communication
700 Prospect Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44115
contact: Barbara Powell
phone: 216-736-2222
email: powellb@ucc.org
http://www.ucc.org

We’re not ‘couch potatoes’
by Meghan Davis
        PROVIDENCE, RI - July 3, 1999 -  “It’s good to give back to the
community,” said Jesse Scott as he painted a wire fence Saturday afternoon. 
        Scott is the leader of a group from Elon Homes for Children in
Charlotte, N.C. Thirty-four kids came with him to Synod. That’s 34 more kids
from my generation that aren’t lazy couch potatoes.
        The kids that I saw were far from lazy. In fact, they were working hard
in 85-degree heat, pulling weeds around tombstones, raking, digging, picking up
trash, painting fences and more -- and those were the jobs done at only two of
the four volunteer sites. 
        Scott and his group helped “Keep Providence Beautiful”clean up the
neighborhood around Allan AME Church in Providence. The mostly low-income,
drug-infested neighborhood was, according to the kids, “really, really gross.”
By the time I arrived, though, it look pretty good.
        Did the kids enjoy the hard work? Many said that they felt good about
themselves. 
        “But are you having fun?” I asked.
        “It’s hot,” was the reply of 99.9 percent of them.
        Not much of an answer, I know. But deep down, they had fun. Maybe they
won’t realize it until their backs stop aching, the sweat quits dripping or the
dirt is washed off. But they will remember and value the time that they spent
helping their fellow human beings. I think that our true purpose in life is to
help each other.

Meghan Davis, 13, is the UCC Press Room’s Youth Correspondent at General Synod
22.