Dear Friends,
Ten years ago, the Carrollton Avenue Church of Christ answered the call to serve the children of Mid-City New Orleans through Kid-City, a program providing after school tutoring to neighborhood elementary school students. In 2002 Kid-City added a reading intensive tutoring program as well as a summer art and drama camp. The summer art and drama camp allowed Kid City to keep in contact with the children and families we were already serving during the summer months as well as reach out to others in the community. Most importantly it allowed our students who struggled in school to shine in drama, art, and sports.
Though Kid-City was left with destroyed computers, ruined our classroom space, and no school supplies after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, they still managed to have a shorter camp for both returning and new students the summer after the storm Last summer, camp served over 45 children from the Mid-City and Hollygrove neighborhoods in New Orleans, representing a 35% increase from before the storm.
Participants are not charged any fees for camp attendance. For the great majority of our students, this is one of the only opportunities throughout the summer to engage in structured educational activities. Without this camp, most of our students would look to the streets of New Orleans for summertime supervision and entertainment. Kid-City camp not only offers a safe alternative, but also exposes each child to the love that their Heavenly Father has for them.
In Exodus 5, the Pharaoh becomes angry that Moses and Aaron have asked to take the Israelites away from their work. In his anger he tells the Hebrew slaves that they are required to make the same number of bricks, but that they will no longer receive straw to make them with. Many of our students face the challenge to make bricks without straw in their own lives-- tough situations that just seem to get tougher. We asked our students to think about the toughest situation they deal with—perhaps it is learning difficulties at school, being shy and afraid of new things, moving around after the storm, missing a parent they don’t get to see much, or a health issue like asthma. Below you can see pictures of bricks painted some of our campers. As you can see, they deal with issues many of us will never face.
In the past, our camp has been funded by grant proposals as well as the Carrollton Avenue Church. This year, due to the tumultuous economy, our grants have been unable to offer funding to us. We don’t want to cut the number of children we serve, and we would still like to offer the best camp possible. The cost for one camper to attend camp for three weeks is $200. Would you be willing to help send one child to camp? Perhaps your Bunco group, Sunday school class, Officemates, extended family or roommates could get together to support one child. If you can’t support financially at this time, we would ask that you pray that our ministry would continue to shine light in the dark places of New Orleans. If you are interested supporting a camper, I will gladly send you a picture of the camper you are supporting, along with a brief biography of how they came to Kid-City and how they would be benefit by attending this camp. Please don’t hesitate to email me at msw04c@acu.edu. Thanks for taking the time to read this note and please consider passing this information on to others who might be in a position to help.
Love you all!
Shannon
Checks can be made out to Mid-City Ministries or the Carrollton Avenue Church of Christ (Kid-City Camp in the memo line). The address of the church is listed below.
Carrollton Avenue Church of Christ
Attn: MidCity Ministries
4536 South Carrollton Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70119
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