When Students Lead the Way

by Charles Massey

Over the past several years, Houghton students and alumni have put their knowledge and passion for fixing up the world into practice in programs throughout the greater Buffalo area. They demonstrate the spiritually invested, academically equipped global engagement we have been discussing in the previous pages.

What inspires 40 or more Houghton students to get up early on Saturday mornings and take an hour-and-ahalf bus ride to Buffalo, spend a couple of hours in the city, then take the long bus ride back to Houghton? It wasn't something the college planned.

Journey's End—It began in the fall of 2004, when eight students chose to come to Buffalo each Saturday to tutor Somali Bantu children who had arrived in Buffalo from refugee camps in Kenya. Andy Gallman, professor of linguistics, who was teaching a course in which the Houghton students were enrolled, worked with Journey's End Refugee Services to organize the placements and arranged for the college to provide transportation. When the course ended, the students decided to continue the tutoring during the spring semester—and invited a few friends to join them. In fact, more than 25 student tutors started making the weekly trip.

This fall Houghton students are in their seventh semester of tutoring refugees in their homes. There have been a few changes: we have moved from vans to a bus to transport the 40+ student tutors participating, for example. Jessica McDonnell '07 is coordinating the Saturday tutoring program as a part of her work with Western New York AmeriCorps.

New Horizons—The success of the tutoring effort led representatives of the college and Journey's End to explore the possibility of organizing a summer program for refugee children (four to 12 years old) that would focus on language and math skills and prepare them for school. Through a collaborative effort with AmeriCorps and the King Urban Life Center, the New Horizons program was born. The fiveweek summer program, begun in 2005, served 50 refugees (42 children and eight mothers), with nine staff (Houghton College students or recent graduates, serving through AmeriCorps) and numerous volunteers from area churches.

This summer Liz Garofano '05—who was one of the volunteers that first year—directed the third annual New Horizons as part of her AmeriCorps assignment. She and her staff of 10 (including eight Houghton students or recent graduates) expanded the program and collaborated with the Buffalo public school's "Jump Start" to serve nearly 150 refugees, using Our Lady of Loretto School and two public schools.

Hope—That isn't all that is happening in the effort to respond to the needs of refugees living in Buffalo. Realizing that When Students Lead the Way by Charles Massey primary funding for the resettlement of refugees in the United States is limited to their first six months here and that the road to self-sufficiency is not likely to be traversed in so short a time, Bonnie (Wheeler '77) MacBeth and Anna Ireland '00 have taken the leadership in establishing Hope Refugee Services, working closely with the Houghton Office for Urban Connections. MacBeth is serving as an Americorps/VISTA member this year, assigned to facilitate Hope's development. Ireland is a doctoral student in cultural anthropology at the University at Buffalo, teaches a sociology course at Houghton, supervises Houghton interns in Buffalo and assists in the Office for Urban Connections.

As co-directors, the women are designing Hope to complement and supplement the work of four resettlement agencies that serve Buffalo. Its offices and drop-in center are in a house on Breckenridge Street that was given to Houghton in May by Providence Community, with the hope that the college would continue to use the facility for ministry and maintain a positive presence in the neighborhood.

In addition to helping individuals and families find help, Hope is addressing the educational and housing needs of refugees. On October 6 the group launched Focused Learning for Youth (FLY), an after-school and Saturday educational enrichment program for middle school refugee students. Houghton, D'Youville College, Buffalo State and The Wesleyan Church of Hamburg currently supply tutors for the program, which is housed at Our Lady of Loretto School. Shiloh Harkness '10 is a sociology intern who also assists at the drop-in center and with FLY.

RUN—Another initiative of the Office for Urban Connections, Renewing Urban Neighborhoods (RUN), is primarily the work of Jer Clifton '07, who is serving a year with AmeriCorps/VISTA with the assignment to work with community-based organizations to improve the quality of life in the Grant-Ferry area. Clifton has taken advantage of his residence in the college's Breckenridge house to become acquainted with the neighbors and has initiated a block club. He works with a coalition of West Side community housing groups to address housing matters and has been appointed as a community liaison to the Buffalo housing court. (Housing for refugees is a shared concern of RUN and Hope.)

Jericho Road—Jericho Road Family Practice, established ten years ago by Myron Glick, M.D. '88, is just four blocks from the Breckenridge house, and is well known among organizations and agencies working with refugees because of its willingness to serve the medical needs of all. Polly (Jennejahn '80) Tice is a social worker/chaplain with Jericho Road Family Practice.

Jericho Road Ministries is the non-profit organization that owns the facility on Barton Street that houses the family practice, as well as Journey's End Refugee Services and the RiverRock Church (more on that below). Stephanie Smith '07 and Alicia Walmus '07 are serving AmeriCorps/VISTA terms with Jericho Road Ministries, which looks for ways to address the whole range of needs of the poor, beyond the medical.

Bob Tice '80, Polly's husband, is the pastor at RiverRock Church. RiverRock describes itself as "An Assembly of the Nations in the City" and the makeup of the congregation supports the label. Among the approximately 120 adults and children attending, there are individuals from Burma, Burundi, Congo, Cuba, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Sudan, Togo, Vietnam and the Mohawk and Seneca Nations—as well as Caucasian-Americans and African-Americans.

Greater Buffalo—While we have been mostly sharing about the work of students and alumni with refugees, there are many other programs throughout the greater Buffalo area where you can find Houghton well represented:

• Cap Farrow '79, with the strong support of his wife Barb (Bowser '78), is pastor of Grace Community Church, a year-old Wesleyan congregation on the city's West Side.

• Mark Cerbone '78 and his wife Diann provide the direction for Peace of the City Ministries, an organization that addresses the spiritual, educational (with a special focus on literacy), economic and social needs of children and youth.

• Heather Hodson '03 is in her second year of teaching in the preschool program at Cornerstone Manor, after serving at the King Center Charter School (KCCS) through AmeriCorps. At KCCS Heather coordinated the Saturday reading program that has relied on Houghton College students as tutors since its inception seven years ago.

• Janelle Briggs '05 is a graduate student in library science at the University at Buffalo and the part-time coordinator of the KCCS library and the Saturday reading program. Janelle served two terms with AmeriCorps, one as a caseworker at Journey's End Refugee Services and the other at the KCCS.

• Rod McCallum '05 is the founder of Queen City Farm (QCF) on Utica Street. QCF is developing an urban farm on 20 empty lots in a neglected area for which the city has been attempting to find constructive use. QCF is also attempting to restore a once-grand Victorian house that has been abandoned and marked for demolition.

• Lindsey (Kestler '06) Pasieka is a fourth grade teacher at KCCS. Last year she served an AmeriCorps term with the United Methodist Church in Belfast and directed the Houghton College math camp for third graders from Belfast Central School and KCCS. The director at KCCS is Claity Price Massey, who taught at Houghton from 1977-2000.

• Students in language and literacy courses at Houghton are pen pals to third and fourth graders at KCCS. The college students visit each fall and KCCS students visit Houghton each spring. Houghton has also been the major source for tutors for the Saturday reading program at the school. This is the eighth year of Houghton participation with both the Pen Pals and Saturday reading programs.

• Russ Kingsbury '78 and Brian Ellsworth '88 run Youth Advantage, an organization that uses sports to build connections with and positively impact the lives of a large number of Buffalo teens. As many as 30 boys and girls from Youth Advantage have attended Houghton's summer basketball camps in a single year. Kingsbury and Ellsworth brought a group of 20 to participate in the Houghton 3-on-3 tournament last spring, and the Houghton women's basketball team has helped out at the Friday night sports ministry at Expressway Assembly of God church in Buffalo.

It is the mission of Houghton College to equip students to lead and labor as scholar-servants in a changing world. In recent years the college has given much attention to "service-learning" as an intentional strategy in pursuit of that mission. That most Houghton students take seriously the idea of becoming scholar-servants is apparent; they often lead the way in discovering new opportunities for global engagement and using their academic preparation to its best advantage.

Charles E. Massey is professor of education and coordinator of the Office for Urban Connections. Now in his 32nd year at Houghton, Chuck and his wife Claity live in Buffalo.