PlantR Churches Partnering with Communities in Schools

June 15, 2009 | 2 Comments

What follows is a guest post from Alissa Magrum. Alissa is the Director of Volunteer Services and Community Partnerships for Communities In Schools of Central Texas (website | twitter). Several churches in the network have partnered with CIS in their mission is to help kids stay in school and prepare for life. We thought it would be good to share those stories!

A year ago, my phone rings. It is Jacob Vanhorn. He tells me that he is the Pastor of an Austin church plant called Soma Community Church. My first thought is, “What the heck is a Church Plant?!” I kept that thought to myself. Anyhow, Jacob tells me that he is planting this church in the 78704 zip and wants to connect Soma to serve the 78704 community. CIS has programs in 78704 schools, so we have one meeting and the partnership is rolling.

Soma asks what CIS needs:
We need mentors. So they recruit mentors for our Middle School Mentoring Matters collaboration with Big Brothers/Big Sisters.
We need CIS space spruced up. So they do an Extreme Makeover of the CIS space at Dawson Elementary. And bring in Ecclesia (and many other local resources) to help.
A CIS family is in crisis. They respond immediately to help in many ways.
We need volunteers at our Smart Kids after school program. Soma folks apply, get trained and begin volunteering.
CIS wants to get set up on Twitter to extend our reach. Jacob volunteers to get our account set up and going.

In his free time, Jacob tells Matthew Hansen of Austin New Church (then Emmaus Austin) about CIS. My phone rings again. They want to help CIS programs in South Austin. Uh Ok. This time no meeting needed. Partnership is rolling.

New Church Plant, same question. What does CIS need?
We need School Supplies. ANC sponsors 14 CIS students with school supplies.
We need CIS space spruced up. ANC does Extreme Makeovers at Langford and Rodriguez Elementary.
We need runners for Team CIS in the Austin Half/Full Marathon. Matthew and Luis Sanchez sign up, raise $1000 and run the Half Marathon for Team CIS.
We need more CIS space spruced up. ANC gets the local Wal Mart to give us $1000 grant and sign up to do an Extreme Makeover of the CIS space at Paredes Middle School.
We need CIS families sponsored with Holiday Assistance. ANC sponsors families in Hays County.
And on and on. CIS needs come up ANC responds.

Now in his free time, Matthew begins sending more of these really cool Church Planters to CIS. My phone keeps ringing. These partnerships between CIS, Soma Community Church and the Austin New Church are giving birth and life to many other connections between CIS and local Austin Church Plants. Meetings are happening. Additional Austin Church Plants are connecting with CIS programs all over Austin and even in Hays County. The magic of these partnerships seems to be a pure desire to serve the community coupled with knowledge and access to real people and community needs.

Thank you to Jacob (and Soma) and Matthew (and ANC). CIS truly cherishes these partnerships and we are excited to continue developing additional ones. Please keep my phone ringing 512-464-9724 and my email account full: amagrum@cisaustin.org.

Categories: Churches, partnerships