South Carolina Baptist Campers on Mission volunteers worked alongside youth on probation and parole on a pilot project sponsored by the Department of Juvenile Justice Aug. 13-16 in Columbia.
Campers on Mission volunteer Jerry Branton, a member of State Street Baptist Church in Cayce, helps a youth through a DJJ project making Adirondack chairs for charity.
During the “Chairs4Charity” event, the volunteers got to know troubled teens while they constructed 30 wooden Adirondack chairs, which were then given to charities and sold through DJJ’s Store of Hope, a retail and employability program. Volunteers also taught sewing skills to young incarcerated women during the project.
Dutch Meyer, a Campers on Mission volunteer from Springvale Baptist Church in Lugoff, said it was his first experience working with DJJ. “We got to know these kids who have been on the wrong side of the tracks while we taught them some basic woodworking skills. It’s been marvelous,” he said.
Through their love for camping, Campers on Mission volunteers are ready to respond to crisis situations and mission opportunities when needs arise. Yvonne and J.R. McGee are Iva First Baptist Church members who help coordinate some Campers on Mission projects, and they traveled to Columbia in their RV to be a part of the project.
“A lot of people shy away from dealing with prisons and the stigma that is attached to them,” said Yvonne McGee. “We want these young people to know that people love them, to teach them about giving to others, and to show them Jesus. We will be praying for them as they go back out into the world.”
The relationship between community and church volunteers and youth offenders is something Chairs4Charity coordinator Stacey Atkinson is working to foster. Atkinson, director of DJJ’s Project HOPE (Helping Others Prepare for Employment), works closely with Irene Murphy, Woman’s Missionary Union DJJ associate, so that more South Carolina Baptists can become involved in positively influencing young people and helping equip them with usable life skills. When Atkinson broached the project idea, Murphy said Campers on Mission was the perfect group to bring to the planning table.
The Adirondack chairs started as raw materials that were purchased with funds donated for the project. Volunteer leaders of the DJJ/Vector Young Craftsmen’s Club, an after-school woodworking program for incarcerated youth, oversaw the safety of the DJJ-owned equipment. Campers on Mission volunteers worked alongside the youth to measure and cut each piece of the chairs, then assemble and sand the finished pieces. Each work day included devotions, and Midlands-area churches provided snacks and lunches.
Through his job as the program assistant for the DJJ/Vector Young Craftsmen’s Club, Dave Morrison works year-round with incarcerated youth on woodworking skills. “It’s amazing to have Baptists come to work with these at-risk kids,” he said. “It’s nothing but a benefit to these kids.”
Charity is a vital element of the project, and the youth chose to give some of the chairs they built to the United Way of the Midlands’ free medical clinic, The Salvation Army and the Alston Wilkes Veterans Home in Columbia.
Campers on Mission volunteers Jerry Branton (left), and Dutch Meyer take a break while helping DJJ youths make 30 Adirondack chairs for charity.
All participating youth earned 18 hours of community service credit, but many walked away with much more. On the first day of the project, one teenager said he liked working on something so positive. Another said the only other woodworking project he had ever made was a birdhouse in third grade, but that he learned a lot and enjoyed working with the volunteers. During a celebration service held on the final day, one teenager said, “I didn’t think building chairs would be different from any other community service, but it was. It meant a lot to make chairs for the charities.”
During the Chairs4Charity project, four Campers on Mission women also helped a small group of female youth inmates with a sewing project one afternoon. Varneda Meyer, a member of Springvale Church, said the group made 16 shawls that were later given to Meals on Wheels clients. “I have been involved in other prison ministries, but this is the first time I have worked with DJJ. The experience makes me want to go out and talk to other young people,” she said.
Murphy said she could see evidence of God’s hand in the project all along the way. “The volunteers and youth were building chairs while they built relationships,” she said. “God orchestrated everything, and we have seen him at work.”