ONE CHURCH ONE SCHOOL
The Lafayette Cub Scout Troop 76 wanted to do something to serve a family in need for Christmas. (Luke is in scouts and is a wolf.) Laurie Harris – whose husband Kirk leads Luke’s den- asked me to help. She had tried to get help from her church to no avail. Since the scouts meet at Ryan Elementary school and most of the boys like Luke attend Ryan, I thought this might be a good opportunity to serve the school.
See, a month or so ago, a few of us representing several local churches met with the Boulder Valley School Superintendent, Dr. Chris King. Chris has a high regard for the churches in Boulder. Over the years churches have provided thousands of volunteers to help improve facilities through weekends called ‘Sharefest’. In the past few years, Sharefest has evolved to more than just school projects but also smaller projects where we have helped local non-profits or single moms and widows in need.
In talking with Chris, he really wanted to see our partnership with the schools continue. Considering we saved the school board a lot of money in manpower during tight budgets, who could blame him. Together, we came up with a “One Church / One School” plan. The idea is a local church would adopt an underachieving school for facility upkeep needs but could also partner in other ways too like mentoring at-risk kids, appreciating the teachers or whatever was needed. Each church and school would work together to find the best fit of needs and assets. Our motivation as a united church would simply be to fill the Great Commandment of loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Chris identified the schools with the greatest need and one of those was Ryan Elementary. As a parent, you may not want to think your child attends an underachieving school but we saw this as an opportunity. Not only does Luke and several other kids from our church attends Ryan but also six of the Burmese refugee kids our church helps relocate and transition to community. Robin specifically serves as a liaison between the school and their families, so we already had the relationships and trust with the administration.
So back to the scouts… I thought this would be a good way to begin working with Ryan at a deeper level. So I emailed the principal and ESL Teacher (who I knew and) Miriam Wright, the Family Advocate for all of the elementary schools in Lafayette, who I had yet to meet. (By the way, Miriam is awesome and an angel!) The principal got her assistant involved and I met with them. Together we came up with a plan to help 30 families who have kids at Ryan that are in need this Christmas.
A local business donated toys. The Cub Scouts donated food for 5 families – one per den. Our church provided food for the remaining 25 boxes. Each box had enough food for a family of five along with a gift card. This past week, with help from others, I packed them all in nicely decorated boxes, loaded them into our van and delivered them to Ryan Elementary. On Saturday morning the 18th, families came to the school to pick up the gifts and boxes of food. These families, who had nothing, now have something for Christmas.
Robin & my prayer is that this is only the beginning of us loving our neighbor – Ryan Elementary and families in Lafayette. Our prayer is that God will raise up others to help mentoring kids and serve the school & community with the love of Christ in tangible ways.
