The Rev. Susan Fritz (Christ Church Durham & St. James’ Indian Head) and the Rev. Steve Seely (Christ Church La Plata and Christ Church Wayside), our Charles County deacons.
Most churches do something to help the back-to-school effort. Our two deacons in Charles County, the Rev. Susan Fritz (Christ Church Durham & St. James’ Indian Head) and the Rev. Steve Seely (Christ Church La Plata & Christ Church Wayside) put their heads together on some collaboration.
“There are about 700 students in transition (without permanent housing) in the Charles County schools and many more more living below the poverty line,” Deacon Steve says. He wondered what could be done to help these students – and the teachers, too. With Deacon Sue, they collaborated to launch The Deacons’ Challenge to see whose parishes could come through for the kids.
The three-week campaign focused on four items: spiral/composition notebooks, pens/pencils, crayons/colored pencils, and glue. Deacon Sue’s parishes took care of the glue and crayons while Deacon Steve’s parishes handled notebooks and pencils.
The four parishes came through for the kids in Charles County Public Schools in a big way!
1,125 notebooks. 2,500 pencils. 1,900 ink pens. 550 glue sticks. 225 boxes of crayons and colored pencils. 200 packages of filler notebook paper.
Wow.
Who won the Deacons’ Challenge? According to Deacon Sue, “The real winners were the students and teachers. We look forward to doing this again next year.”