Neighborhood School

Connecting with local kids

Prayer, time, energy, and love for kids fuse into friendship for this ministry. The Neighborhood School Partnership connects St. Paul with a school across the street from the church campus. Whether once a week or once-in-a-while, volunteers are the extra hands and hearts for children and staff at Madison Elementary School.

Ways to serve

Teachers and kids know they can count on St. Paul friends.

Pray: Life is challenging for many of these families. Your prayer is the extra grace they need to hold on, move forward, or be lifted up.

Read: Children love to be read to. They also love to read to someone else. Delight in a favorite picture book or explore adventures in a chapter book.

Make: Whatever you love to do, they love to receive. Neighborhood school volunteers bake, create, plant, build, paint, and fix. Garden, knit, design, dream. The schools receive these gifts with arms opened wide.

Help: When staff can’t be everywhere at once, we step in. We set up, serve meals, chaperone events, lead games, take tickets, greet families, work in the classroom. Faith shines bright in the hallways.

Mentor: Enjoy time with a child, usually during the lunch hour. Relationships are formed while playing games, laughing over a puzzle, finishing a craft. The library provides a quiet haven to get to know each other. If shooting basketball is your thing, the gym beckons!

Madison Market: Hungry kids have a hard time learning. Madison Market, a River Bend Foodbank pantry, offers families a chance to shop every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. Volunteers shop, transport, and stock this food pantry that offers fresh produce (some from St. Paul’s Community Gardens), frozen meat and seafood, milk, eggs, and a wide selection of boxed and canned food.  St. Paul ministries intersect and also provide toiletries, diapers, and feminine care products for neighborhood families.

Neighborhood Schools Partnership: Dana Welser