Mission Statement: “As Christians, we believe that God sent His only Son to us that we might know that He loves each of us without limitation. We believe that every person is a child of God and is entitled by the grace of God to know and experience the Love of God. We know that we have each one been called by God to love one another as God loves us. Therefore, with the help of God, we take these children into our homes and into our hearts, into our arms and into our souls in order to love them as God loves us.”

Teens United With Churches is an evolving, faith-based ministry committed to providing local teenagers with safe and adequate housing, social support, crisis assistance, and independent living development. This new and collaborative ministry developed when members of three churches, St. Paul AME, Church of the Holy Family, and the Chapel of the Cross, met in the summer of 2002 to discuss the large number of teenagers in our community who are without these basics.

The long-term goal of Teens United With Churches is to build or obtain and operate a local communal home for displaced teenagers. Short-term goals include assisting local at-risk teens with school supplies, tutoring, mentoring, and interim housing.

One of the first projects to be implemented was a tutoring program developed by Rev. Mary Jane Palmer of St. Paul AME. On Wednesday nights from 6:45 to 8 p.m. at St. Paul AME, local teens are invited to meet with tutors. Students bring homework and are paired with tutors to work through difficult math problems, design science projects, practice Spanish or French, and learn how to study.

What is it like to tutor young people who are having difficulties? It means having an immediate impact, seeing someone wake up. It means restoring your confidence in kids. And sometimes it means seeing yourself, witnessing your own struggles in another person.

Why is it important to listen to teenagers, to share their frustrations and their joys? Because they are our hope, and their growth and development is a necessary condition for our future. Each teenager is unique and we cannot afford to lose a single one.

“ A tree gives glory to God by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do.” Thomas Merton

Contact persons:
Martha Hart, Syd Alexander - Chapel of the Cross;
Toni Thomas-Feren - Church of the Holy Family;
Mary Jane Palmer - St. Paul AME.