Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 30, 1990 TAG: 9006300100
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In a series of changes affecting the ecumenical Christian agency, it has lost its full-time director of the past three years, the Rev. Glen Langston. A United Methodist pastor, Langston has been transferred to a church in the Virginia Beach area.
Training and certifying volunteer chaplains to help people in their workplaces is the major work of the institute. Since the program was introduced to America from England nearly 20 years ago, units of chaplains have been established in many states.
But, as Langston said recently, money to maintain a small central office has always been a problem even as the institute has grown in influence. Serious financial problems beset the national office when he came from a pastorate in 1987 to take over from its first director who returned to parish ministry.
Though ecumenical in personal and financial support, the institute has always had close ties to the United Methodist Church in America as in England.
Housed originally in a Roanoke church, the office was moved to downtown Salem in 1986. Last year, it lost that space and had to rent an office on Peters Creek Road. Until plans are final with Ferrum, that office will remain open on a month-to-month basis.
The chaplains are actually listeners who, out of Christian compassion, help workers with personal problems related to their jobs. They have proved especially useful to public-service personnel such as policemen.
They give their time at the invitation of management and do not pressure workers to join a church.
After the first institute unit was formed in Newport News, clergy and laity from there brought the program to Roanoke. Several Roanoke Valley agencies and industries pioneered its support in the 1970s.
Several weeks ago, ICM's board asked for a donation of space so rent money could be saved. Langston said that this does not mean the program is dying. On the contrary, he said, expansion is continuing and his assistant, Barbara Quesinberry, is in full charge until a replacement director is found.
Langston himself plans to continue to work as a chaplain and coordinator of the institute. He said he is "delighted that we have been offered a place in an academic setting and the congenial church atmosphere of Ferrum."
\ Mary Ellen Scott is especially proud of Dominique Brinchfield, a member of the staff of Summer Enrichment which starts its 15th season Monday at West End United Methodist Church.
Brinchfield has grown up with the day camp, which has been held since 1975 for children of the inner-city West End neighborhood. He was a camper for several years, then gave time to help younger children and now has a paid job for four weeks.
Though the camp can accept 75 children from pre-school through elementary school age, registration has been down the last two summers, Scott said. She is education director at Greene Memorial United Methodist Church, one of the four sponsors of the camp.
Scott and others who run the camp are puzzled about the drop in attendance. Summer school siphons off some children, she said, and there may be a grimmer reason.
"We've heard some parents are afraid to let their children walk through our neighborhood because of the drugs and violence they're hearing about," she said.
Summer enrichment cannot offer transportation, Scott said. It does provide supervised entertainment Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., a solid lunch - the sponsoring churches provide food daily, swimming, and field trips for children whose families cannot provide these summer amenities.
The camp is free except for $1 paid at registration. Its five counselors, augmented by about 50 volunteers, are paid $500 each for four weeks of work. Kathy Zimmerman, a guidance counselor at two inner city schools, gets $1,000 as director.
West End Church, 13th Street and Campbell Avenue Southwest, has added basement rest rooms and made other improvements for the annual campers. Volunteers, said Scott, come from that church, her own Greene Memorial, St. John's Episcopal, and Our Lady of Nazareth Catholic.
Summer Enrichment was started as a deliberate ecumenical outreach of Greene Memorial and Nazareth parishes when the Catholic church was nearby on Campbell Avenue.
Scott said volunteers and financial help are needed.
by CNB