Crossover Kids Our After-School and Summer Enrichment STEAM-based Program at Hawthorne Elementary School.
Pictures above: (Left) Ms. Faye caring for some of the Crossover Cubs; (Right) Ms. Faye with College Interns Kylia and Gabby.
MENTORING MATTERS by Faye Finely
I
am Faye Finley, and I have the privilege of being a Crossover Kids volunteer! At 74, I have been volunteering in kids’ programs for 60 years. It would seem I might want to retire or the younger leaders would “encourage” me to move on, but this isn’t the case. My husband, Mike, and I and our 3 kids (Jonathan, David and Sara) did ministry together for many years; thirty-four of those years were in rural churches. In August of 2014, after being retired for 3 years, it was clear the Lord was leading us to Crossover. We were looking for a place to serve and also needed a church where the word of God was preached in-depth and in power. Crossover is the loving caring family we need, and we love its emphasis on working to heal the community as this had been our aim in our rural work. A few weeks into our first year as Sunday School Teachers at Crossover Bible Church, Leah Pickard, shared about the IMPACT Kids After-School Program (now called the Crossover Kids pro-
gram). Timidly, I went to her after the worship service and asked if she could use an old lady as a volunteer. At that time, she had no other volunteers and the teenage helpers (StreetLeaders) didn’t arrive until after 4:00 P.M. Quickly, I knew I had found my happy place. Soon I was volunteering 4 afternoons a week. I love kids, but I especially love the Hawthorne students! Leah needed someone to run the program for the students in Pre-K and Kindergarten, so after Christmas we allowed younger siblings to join forming the “Lion Cubs”. “T” was a boy that was losing his hair in patches and couldn’t sit still. He wouldn’t do his homework although he seemed smart. He was always in trouble in class and in our program for causing disruptions. I thought we would need to ask him to leave for the sake of the others then one afternoon, I met his Mom. She told me the summer before he was on a raft in the lake with his cousins and baby sister and his sister fell off and was lost in the lake for several hours. Learning this helped me to understand better what he was going thru. We
Crossover Community Impact
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