Second Sunday Offering on June 14: Shaw Community Center
This month’s Second Sunday Offering is Shaw Community Center or SCC. Dale Ostrander and Meg Maguire are the First Church caring ambassadors to Shaw. They both volunteer as after-school tutors and help with the Christmas gift drive. Dale is also on the Board of Trustees. They were kind enough to share this information. I was pleased to see that SCC has services available to all age groups and has been a positive impact for 30 years.
Recognizing the critical need in the Shaw neighborhood for educational and social services to benefit low-income residents, leaders of Lincoln Temple and Westmoreland UCC churches founded Shaw Community Ministry in 1991 with support from the Potomac Association.
The Center is located in the national landmark Lincoln Temple at 11th and R St, NW. Shaw Community Center serves the neighborhood in many ways, such as:
- Helps parents and their elementary and school-aged children in after-school programs of education, arts and recreation;
- Provides job training and employment counseling to young adults;
- Awards modest college scholarships to selected Shaw high school graduates;
- Sponsors a dynamic summer camp;
- Brings the community together for parties and performances; and
- Educates children of all ages about Shaw’s rich cultural heritage and both the positive and negative changes taking place there.
Each year, the staff help the children write and perform a play about their community, its history, challenges, and, most importantly, actions that students can take to assert their belonging in this community and city. This is civic education at its best!
While First Church supports Shaw through our June Second Sunday Offering, and while the organization has been successful in receiving grants, the Center needs many additional gifts and talents:
- Donors to help expand day-to-day operations and address the serious structural problems with the building the Center must now manage;
- Donors to the scholarship fund; and
- Volunteers who can help students with their homework during the school year or activities during the summer.
Your contribution will directly enrich the lives of children in our city who live on the margins. Please give generously.