Disciple: Far Beyond Feeding and Tutoring

St. Paul’s Kids’ Café expands to further mission and vision.

By Kerry Nesbit

In September 1999, St. Paul’s, Winston-Salem, joined two local churches to establish a Kids’ Café program. The goal was simple: feed dinner to 25 hungry children three nights a week and supervise them as they did their homework. Kids’ Café is an initiative of Feeding America, with more than 1,500 sites nationwide. St. Paul’s Kids’ Café is one of seven such programs administered locally by Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina.

After the first year, one church dropped out, but St. Paul’s and Parkway United Church of Christ, Winston-Salem, continued as partners for the next eight years, meeting in the fellowship hall at Parkway. When Parkway determined it could no longer house the program, the Rev. Michael R. Bradshaw, who served as deacon at St. Paul’s and recently retired as outreach minister, arranged to relocate the program to St. Paul’s.

Now in its 15th year, St. Paul’s Kids’ Café has evolved into a thriving, multidimensional ministry considered integral to the church’s vision for the future. In the last year, the program expanded enrollment from 32 to 46 children in grades K-12, with 21 children on a waiting list. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, buses transport students to St. Paul’s for a hot meal and help with homework and school projects. Fifty-four Kids’ Café volunteers serve throughout the week alongside a paid part-time staff of four.

The decision to expand Kids’ Café emerged from a long-range vision process undertaken by St. Paul’s in 2011.       

“As part of the visioning process, we clarified our strengths and identified key areas for future mission and ministry,” said parishioner Leigh Smith, who serves on the Long-Range Vision Implementation Committee. “In envisioning what that mission and ministry would be, our parish expressed support for reaching outside our walls, into the community to help educate children, support families and address hunger. Because Kids’ Café is accepted and trusted within the Weatherwood community, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood where most of the children in the program live, building on its reputation and success was a natural choice. So in response to the vision expressed by the parish, our implementation subcommittees pooled resources to expand Kids’ Café.”

Parishioner Scott Wierman, who co-chairs St. Paul’s Long-Range Vision Implementation Committee, added, “Kids’ Café is a perfect example of doing with people rather than doing for people. Trusting relationships centered on Christian love have been and are being built among the members of St. Paul’s and the Kids’ Café families.” 

Bradshaw said of the Kids’ Café expansion, “Clearly, the spirit of God was moving in the midst of us. The initial conversations among the members of the implementation committee happened truly unbeknownst to me. When they approached us, we saw it as a wonderful opportunity to build on what we were already doing. They recruited 20 new volunteers, and we contacted the 15 kids on our waiting list. [We knew] it meant we would be running both [of] our buses and spending more money on food, but we got a $5,000 grant for food last year and another this year that covers the extra food we’re serving. It seems the spirit wanted the expansion to happen; everybody talked about it in that light, and it came together.”

Ed Carlson, tenor section leader in the St. Paul’s choir, has been a Kids’ Café volunteer for 10 years. Although volunteers are asked to commit to tutoring only one night a week throughout the school year, Carlson often comes all three nights to help older students with mathematics. “These kids don’t have a lot of resources at home, but if we give of ourselves to them as much as we can, it helps level the playing field,” he said.

“It’s a real joy to get to spend time with the children,” said parishioner Kay Lord, a member of the implementation committee who is tutoring the same two elementary school students for the second consecutive year. “They are happy to be at St. Paul’s, happy to get a good dinner, and they understand the hour we spend together doing homework is helping them.”

Kids’ Café graduate, Yunuen Salinas, 20, is just one example of the program’s effectiveness. “Yunuen is the Kids’ Café story,” said program director Elaine Williams. “With the support she received, she made good grades and was admitted to the Forsyth Early College high school program, where she earned enough college credits to enroll at Winston-Salem State [University] as a junior. Her sister, Karen, who with their two brothers is also a Kids’ Café student, has applied to attend Early College next fall.”

“Kids’ Café has made a big impact in my life because they guided me from second grade all the way through high school,” said Salinas, an education major who plans to teach second grade. “I had really good role models there who influenced me to want to be a teacher.”

“One of the wonderful things about the program, as needs come up beyond the scope of the program, our volunteers and supporters find ways to get things done,” said Williams. “Our scholarship fund has helped several students with college tuition. We helped one child get corrective surgery for a cleft lip and palate through Operation Smile. More recently, Mike Bradshaw’s wife, Penni, who is a lawyer, contributed pro bono services to help eight of our students qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which helps them continue their education and enter the work force.

“From the beginning, Mike Bradshaw had a vision for making Kids’ Café about more than feeding and educating children,” added Williams. “He saw it as an opportunity to establish a community of volunteers, children, and the children’s families.”

“Through Kids’ Café, we are ministering, not just to children, but to a whole community of people that includes many of our potential future leaders,” said Bradshaw. “From the outset, my goal was to get to know these families and when we can, go beyond feeding and tutoring children to meeting other needs as they surface. They are our neighbors, and as Christ taught us, we are to love them as we love ourselves. As Henri Nouwen said, ‘Telling someone “I love you” in whatever way is always delivering good news. Nobody will respond by saying, “Well, I knew that already, you don’t have to say it again.” Words of love and affirmation are like bread. We need them each day, over and over. They keep us alive inside.’”

Kerry Nesbit is the communications director at St. Paul's, Winston-Salem.