By John Coleman*
Jan. 3, 2008 | WASHINGTON (UMNS)

“I was depressed in high school because I felt my life didn’t count for anything or to anybody,” says Jessica Woo, 19.

All that changed when Woo, who is Buddhist and a fourth-generation Chinese-Japanese American, joined The SPOT, a teen-run organization offering friendship, community involvement and leadership development to mostly Asian-American youth in Alameda, Calif. The name stands for SimPon Obsessed Teens. (“SimPon” is a word the youth made up, meaning “positive energy created through supportive fellowship.”)

This 6-year-old ministry of Buena Vista United Methodist Church, a pan-Asian and historically Japanese-American congregation in Alameda, is also the recipient of a $30,000 two-year grant from the Minority Group Self-Determination Fund. The fund is administered by the United Methodist Church’s Commission on Religion and Race.

“I found friends at The SPOT who listened and cared about me.” –Jessica Woo

The SPOT is one of nearly three dozen projects—several involving youth—that were recently approved for Minority Group Self-Determination grants for 2007-2009. All are operated by racial/ethnic United Methodist churches or caucuses or by community organizations. To qualify, they must have racial/ethnic minority leadership and goals of fostering justice, self-determination, inclusion and reconciliation among racial/ethnic groups and communities.

Thirty-three grants, out of 89 applications, were approved for 2007-2009, totaling more than $1 million.

“This grants program has been a significant ministry of our church since 1970,” says Bishop Timothy Whitaker of Florida, vice president of the commission's board and chairman of the grants committee. “There are so many promising and outstanding projects out there that are changing, empowering and even saving lives, and many of them are often overlooked by other funding sources.

“As much as we have given to so many over the years,” he adds, “we just wish we could give more to support the work being done toward racial justice, reconciliation and self-determination.”

Grant recipients

Projects receiving grants for 2007-2009 are:

Quechan Sunrise based at Fort Yuma United Methodist Church, on a Native American reservation next to fast-growing Yuma, Ariz. Organizers want to “elevate the quality of life of the Quechan people” by establishing community gardens, micro-loans for small business development, martial arts training and other family oriented, knowledge-based ministries. (Native American—$40,000)

Kerigma Theater Company, at Oasis United Methodist Church, a new Hispanic/Latino congregation in Pleasantville, N.J., engages local youth and young adults in Christian music, dance and theater as avenues to positive self-expression, self-discipline and community evangelism. (Hispanic/Latino—$40,000)

Fernwood Community and Senior Service Initiative/Grandparents Raising Grandchildren helps a rising number of grandparents on the South Side of Chicago who are raising their grandchildren because of absentee parents due to divorce, unemployment, drug abuse, incarceration or other circumstances. The project is expanding to include access to community resources, training in computers and Internet use, recreational and cultural opportunities, parenting advice, emotional support, and current information about youth lifestyles and challenges. (African-American—$40,000)

Tennessee Korean American Social Service Center, located at Nashville (Tenn.) Korean United Methodist Church, responds to quality of life needs in the Korean-American community, including language translation and English classes, citizenship training, family counseling, legal aid, health education and adult day care services. The project also runs a school for senior adults on Saturdays. (Asian American—$40,000)

Kahuku United Methodist Church Youth Center and Ministry, located in a rural, low-income community in Kahuku, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, will provide tutoring and enrichment classes, recreational activities and Christian counseling for area youth to encourage them to make positive choices for their lives. (Pacific Islander—$40,000)

GEMS, or Girls Embracing Mentors for Success, is an outreach effort of the Young Adults Ministry at Theressa Hoover United Methodist Church in Little Rock, Ark. Fifty at-risk girls, ages 12 to 18, will be matched with mentors recruited from various professions to address four critical areas of the girls’ lives: educational enrichment, cultural awareness and the arts, community services and character-building. (African-American—$40,000)

Albany United Methodist Outreach Project at Emmaus United Methodist Church in Albany, N.Y., is an urban ministry that serves a growing population of first- and second-generation immigrants and resettled refugees from almost a dozen countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Many of those immigrants attend the multicultural church, along with white, Hispanic/Latino and African-American families. The project provides resettlement services, anti-poverty initiatives, 12-step addiction recovery groups and other intervention ministries. (Multiracial—$40,000)

Shalom Youth Academy, at First Street-Peck-Wesley United Methodist Church, is in a predominantly black community of New Orleans that is still struggling to recover from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. The church works with local partners to help young people create a more positive future through tutoring, mentoring, service-learning projects, community organizing and leadership development skills. (African-American—$40,000)

“This grants program has been a significant ministry of our church since 1970.”
–Bishop Timothy Whitaker

Garden of Tolerance, a project of Jordan United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge, La., expects to bring black and white youth and their mentors from area United Methodist churches together to overcome the racial biases and stereotypes they have learned. As they cooperate to plant, tend and harvest a community vegetable garden in nearby Liberty, Miss., they will learn to appreciate their similarities and differences more, while experiencing social and spiritual development. (African-American—$40,000)

Asian American Domestic Violence Project provides culturally sensitive, multilingual legal aid and other services to Asian immigrant women in the Washington D.C. area, including Maryland and Northern Virginia, who are victims of domestic abuse. Such women are often poorly served by traditional agencies that fail to address their complex circumstances, such as immigration status, language barriers and pressures from families with traditional expectations. (Asian American—$27,500)

Alaska Native Community Organizing Ministry, in Anchorage, is an ecumenical grassroots effort to reverse the extreme high school drop-out rate and substance abuse problems that afflict the Alaska Native community, along with high levels of poverty and crime. The project plans to advance its training of indigenous leadership in advocacy and community organizing for social change. (Native American/Alaskan Native—$22,000)

Fellsmere Committee of Farmworkers, in the citrus-growing town of Fellsmere, Fla., is teaching mostly Mexican farm workers—many who live there year-round—how to impact local and state policies, resolve community problems and counter racial and economic injustice by knowing their rights. The group, run by farm workers, seeks to build its constituents’ leadership skills and civic engagement on important issues. (Hispanic/Latino—$27,500)

From Wedge to Cutting Edge: African Americans & Immigration in the South is an ambitious effort by the Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network, based in Durham, N.C., to forge and strengthen strategic alliances between African Americans and the rapidly growing population of mostly Hispanic/Latino immigrants in this region. Drastic shifts in the economic and cultural landscape pose challenges to an increasingly multiracial South, especially against a backdrop of historical racial injustice and exploitation. This project proposes to build relationships and greater awareness of common issues and cooperative solutions among the diverse groups. (Multiracial—$40,000)

Reducing Racial Healthcare Disparities in West Detroit serves critical health care needs in an underserved area in Detroit, where high morbidity and mortality from chronic diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension, correlate to high percentages of poor and uninsured residents. A local, collaborative health services and education center offers free primary care and preventive health and pharmacy assistance programs, with the help of volunteer staff. The center grew out of mini-clinics, health fairs and health classes at nearby Second Grace United Methodist Church. Now its staff wants to increase disease prevention and management efforts, including HIV screening and counseling, pediatrics, vision care and gynecological services. (African-American—$27,500)

Projects being re-funded include:

Iglesia Metodista Unida de Echo Park Ministerio de Liberacion (Echo Park United Methodist Church Ministry of Liberation), in Los Angeles, organizes and equips its Hispanic/Latino neighbors to know and assert their human and civil rights as workers and housing tenants. The largely immigrant, marginalized community is becoming increasingly gentrified and threatened by protesters who oppose the presence of undocumented people. The project operates numerous ministries, including community forums, immigration services, environmental justice advocacy, cultural programs and home Bible study groups to teach the theological foundations of its work. (Hispanic/Latino—$22,500)

St. Paul After-School Education Program, at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Jamaica, N.Y., uses innovative methods in its tutorial and violence prevention programs for elementary-age students who must overcome academic deficiencies and rampant crime and poverty in their working-class community. The mostly volunteer staff collaborates with school officials, faculty and parents in combining strong remedial teaching with instruction in art, music, computers, conflict resolution skills and leadership development. (African-American—$34,000)

The SPOT, at Buena Vista United Methodist Church. (Asian American—$30,000)

Chicago Day Labor Project, a project of Latino Union, organizes journaleros, or day laborers, who seek work daily on street corners in Chicago. The workers often must face theft of their pay by unscrupulous employers, unsafe working conditions, wrongful arrests by police, disruptive raids by immigration agents and other troubles. The project is trying to improve hiring and labor conditions, prevent anti-immigrant actions by police, and develop a workers’ center where day laborers can gather to seek jobs and receive other assistance. (Hispanic/Latino—$30,000)

Proyecto Espera (Project Hope), also known as the Southern Arizona Border/Immigrant Strategy in Tucson, Ariz., tries to develop hospitality and leadership among immigrants—documented and undocumented—to enhance their ability to obtain work, education, child care, family assistance and participation in local affairs that affect their lives. The project also strives to prevent or overturn anti-immigrant state legislation and counter the attacks of anti-immigrant advocates on the quality of life of its constituents. (Hispanic/Latino—$37,000)

Small grants to regional projects include:

Southeastern Region Native American Caucus Leadership Development Project, based in Jamestown, N.C., wants to recruit, train and mentor more Native Americans in the Southeast—especially young people—to serve as United Methodist leaders on local, district and churchwide levels, representing the interests and concerns of Native people. (Native American—$2,500)

Transforming Lives by Embracing God's Diversity: Listening, Learning, Celebrating, Empowering convened more than 200 United Methodist leaders from across the Southeast at Lake Junaluska, N.C., Dec. 12-15, to explore ideas and models for overcoming racism and encouraging multicultural ministries. Participants learned and used facilitated dialogue, a proven communication process that engages people with different beliefs, experiences and opinions in safe, respectful, creative dialogue. (Multiracial—$2,500)

Metodistas Asociadas Representando la Causa Hispano/Latino Americana (MARCHA)—Pacific Northwest Conference, Renton, Wash. (Hispanic/Latino—$2,500)

General Conference focus

The Commission on Religion and Race also awarded funds to help racial/ethnic conferences and organizations send members to General Conference in 2008 as observers to learn about the legislative assembly and to advocate on issues of concern to their constituents:

• Rio Grande Conference, San Antonio (Hispanic/Latino—$15,000)
• Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference, Oklahoma City (Native American—$10,000)
• Methodist Church of Puerto Rico, Caguas, Puerto Rico (Hispanic/Latino—$20,000)
• Inter-Ethnic Strategy Development Group, Rochester, Minn. (Multiracial—$30,000)
• Black Methodists for Church Renewal, Nashville, Tenn. (African American—$80,000)
• Metodistas Asociadas Representando la Causa Hispano/Latino Americana, Scottsdale, Ariz. (Hispanic/Latino—$80,000)
• Native American International Caucus, Oklahoma City (Native American—$80,000)
• National Federation of Asian American United Methodists, Oakland, Calif. (Asian American—$80,000)
• Pacific Islander National Caucus of United Methodists, Lancaster, Calif. (Pacific Islander American—$50,000)
• Inter-Ethnic Strategy Development Group, Rochester, Minn. (Multiracial—$7,500)

*Coleman is director of communications for the United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race.

News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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Resources

United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race

Minority Group Fund