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Summer of love
By MARY JANE PARK ST. PETERSBURG -- For a week, they leave electronics behind. No TVs, radios, CD players or GameBoys. No hair dryers. Their beds are sleeping bags or air mattresses. They shower in midafternoon -- boys in one shift, girls in another -- in the football locker room at St. Petersburg High School. They prepare meals and clean up afterward, before and after a day's work. Junior and senior high youngsters and their adult leaders from throughout the United States have accepted those conditions to become missionaries for a week in St. Petersburg. They are here as participants in YouthWorks!, an interdenominational Christian organization based in Minneapolis that sends volunteers to nearly 60 sites in the United States, Canada and Mexico. St. Petersburg is the group's only site in Florida. Each person pays about $200, plus the cost of transportation, although some scholarships are available. Every Sunday afternoon from late June through early August, teams arrive at headquarters, Trinity United Church of Christ, 1150 49th St. N. On Friday mornings, the fleet of minivans and small buses departs. The rest of the week, the volunteers -- usually about 60 of them -- are dispatched throughout town, to prepare materials and lessons for Kids' Clubs, or vacation Bible schools, at a couple of churches; sort and shred paper at a recycling center; do painting and weeding; and help at a nursing center, a soup kitchen and a homeless shelter. There's time for Bible study and socializing, maybe a group visit to the beach, the Pier or a park. Four full-time staffers coordinate operations. In St. Petersburg, they are site director Tamra Montgomery, 24, of Kansas City, Mo., who attends Dallas Theological Seminary; Jody Messer, 20, a premed student at the University of Southern Alabama in Mobile; Theresa Jordan, 20, a student at Southeastern Bible College in Birmingham, Ala.; and Jessica Gore, 21, of Hutchinson, Minn., a year-round YouthWorks! employee and a third or fourth cousin of former Vice President Al Gore. This is the program's inaugural summer in St. Petersburg, and Montgomery has endured a crash course in logistics, making numerous trips to Sam's Club and the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Pinellas Park to shop for food and supplies, completing paperwork and adhering to a budget. "I was at Sam's and Wal-Mart every other day," she said. "We're getting better at knowing how much to get every week." Friday morning, July 5, the staff said goodbye to teams from Richmond, Va., and New Smyrna Beach. Volunteers from First Landmark Missionary Baptist Church in Sheridan, Ark., lingered in the parking lot a little past 9. Trent Croft, 18, talked about "a certain sadness" he felt at having seen other people in challenging situations. Visiting with a woman in a nursing center, 15-year-old Jayson Woods said he told her how much he enjoys visiting with his grandparents, who have a 48-acre farm. The woman used a wheelchair, Woods said. "Her legs were very small. "Man, you've got everything,"' she told him. "That was a big revelation." "Their lives change by ministering to other people," observed Jason Wait, the church's youth pastor. Other adult leaders, Tim and Connie Wagner and Waine and Mary Elizabeth Harrington, pitch in along with the teens. They had been on previous YouthWorks! missions, Waine Harrington said, to an American Indian reservation in Montana and to Washington, D.C. One of the men rose early one day to prepare pancakes and sausages for everyone, Montgomery said. Harrington, a maintenance worker for Kohler in Arkansas, used his skills to drive a forklift at one of the work sites, the Louise Graham Regeneration Center. YouthWorks! staffers' days off are noon Friday to noon Sunday; last Sunday, as they waited for fresh teams to arrive, they talked about weekend trips to dinner, the mall and the beach. Last week's group was smaller than usual, bringing youngsters from Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Ala., and Savannah, Ga. Montgomery's cell phone rang a couple of times: One group had encountered an afternoon deluge; another was stuck in traffic on I-4. (Theme park crowds was the guess, and race fans returning from Daytona.) "When something like that happens, it's good to know," Montgomery said, "because we can give them a lot of love." Messer, the grillmaster for the evening, kept on with the burgers. If the kids arrive really late, the food can be reheated. Tuesday evening, in the "Chez YouthWorks Fine Dining" room, some of the teens played cards; the others prepared ingredients for a taco and nacho bar. Rebekah Stewart, 13, who lives in Cordele, Ga., said the trip was a refuge from summer boredom. "There's nothing to do in my neighborhood" except shop in a discount store, go to the movies or visit a department store that carries items she can't afford. Through YouthWorks!, she volunteered in a nursing home, a recycling center and a soup kitchen. She saw alligators on a visit to the environmental center at Sawgrass Lake Park. She didn't seem to miss TV. "If I don't have it, I don't need it," she said. Kristy Tillman, YouthWorks! east coast regional director, said the organization looks for several characteristics in an urban site such as St. Petersburg: "We looked for a moderately sized city (St. Petersburg) that is next to a larger urban area (Tampa)," she said. "We look for a large population of working class poor, people who are working to try and support their family but are barely getting by. "Finding a church that has the same kind of vision that we do" is crucial, she said. It must "desire to reach out into the community and say, "We're willing to open our church and let you stay all summer long.' It takes seeking God's will and him opening some doors." Tillman said she had few contacts and did "a lot of door knocking" on her first trip to St. Petersburg. She met Steve Kersker, who co-chairs the city task force on services for the homeless, and he invited her to a meeting at City Hall, where she met "20 people at one time. I asked them how they could help us establish a ministry in St. Petersburg and about the different organizations that we're trying to serve." To learn moreYouthWorks! teams will be in St. Petersburg through Aug. 8. For information about the national organization, go to www.youthworks.com.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks Letters |
