For the Sake of Others

Prayer Shawl Ministry

St. David’s, Roswell

When Jan Kramer’s husband died, someone from their church, St. David’s in Roswell, called to ask—did she have a prayer shawl? No.

Did she want one? Very much.

Seven years after her husband’s death from dementia, she still occasionally wraps up in the deep green lacy shawl that makes her feel like she’s getting a hug. 

“I was immediately taken with it,” she said. “It was so moving to think that somebody had spent hours making this.”

Since then, Jan herself has been knitting shawls. She had been a knitter for years, making sweaters for her four brothers. She’s not fast, she admits. “It takes me several months to make a shawl. How long depends on lots of factors—the size of the needles, the size of the yarn, the pattern, and how long I decide to spend on it.”

 “I get the satisfaction that my shawl is going to somebody who needs
it to give them comfort.”

— Jan Kramer

She does much of her knitting at home in front of the television, but during times when the church is in full operation, she especially enjoys gathering with other knitters, crocheters, and quilters at the church. “We get together and knit and share stories and experiences,” she said. “The camaraderie with other knitters is special.”

St. David’s prayer shawl ministry volunteers not only furnish shawls to church members and their relatives who are sick, bereaved, or have babies; they also take some to Northside Hospital for patients there. As a retired nurse, Jan understands how isolated a hospital patient can feel.

Each shawl is blessed before it goes out, and prayers are said for its recipient.

Besides making the shawls, the knitters produce scarves, hats, and mittens for homeless people.

Jan doesn’t deliver shawls, and she doesn’t always know who receives one she’s made. That doesn’t matter to her. 

“I get the satisfaction that my shawl is going to somebody who needs it to give them comfort,” she said. “Mine came to me to bring me comfort, and it did.”

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A look into the Red Door Food Pantry. Filmed in 2019

Red Door Food Pantry

Church of the Ascension, Cartersville

Drive-in restaurants have been around since the 1920s. Drive-in church food programs may be an innovation of pandemic times.

In the early days of the COVID-19 shutdown, Tiffany and Jeff Tindall and other volunteers in Cartersville went into overdrive, so to speak, to make sure hungry families were being fed.

The Church of the Ascension, with its distinctive red front door, has operated the Red Door Food Pantry for more than two decades. In 2019, the pantry handed out more than 118,000 pounds of food to serve more than fourteen thousand people.

Then the pandemic hit, and in weeks the pantry evolved into a dinners-to-go program that served more than fifty thousand meals and involved some 250 volunteers from all around Cartersville, cooking, assembling, cleaning, and distributing meals. The program targeted people in high-risk categories for COVID-19.

Red Door volunteers at Ascension ran it in partnership with the Friendship Table at First Presbyterian Church of Cartersville.

“The thing that stood out for me from a religious standpoint was how everyone came together despite all the theological differences,” Jeff said.

Both the Tindall children had volunteer roles of their own. Elyse, eleven, helped with paperwork; Jacob, six, handed out pet food.

Jeff and Tiffany Tindall manage the Red Door Food Pantry in Cartersville. During the first weeks of COVID-19, the pantry shifted to providing drive-through prepared meals.

The Tindalls have been involved with Ascension’s food pantry for about eight years. “Food has always been an important part of my family,” said Jeff. “My grandmother was of Lebanese descent, and I have great memories of family meals. As a family, we focus on issues of hunger and homelessness.”

Like Jeff, Tiffany has memories of growing up in a household where food and hospitality were emphasized. “My mom would always say nobody should go hungry,” she said. “And anybody can sit at our table any time.”

Tiffany was not raised in a church but began attending with Jeff, a cradle Episcopalian when they started dating. They worked together in the food pantry, and when the volunteer manager had to step down, they took over.

“Cartersville is an amazing community,” Tiffany said. “There are a lot of people who want to make the community better.”

But, she said, she also sees a lot of need. “So many people in the community do struggle,” she said. “If we can do something to make that better, if we can show them God’s love by service, then that’s what we should do.”

“I get so much out of serving,” said Jeff. “In my journey with Christ, I can fail in so many ways. I feel like in this one area of service, I’m getting it right.”

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Dan Ginter of Columbus and other volunteers offer hospitality and help to immigrants being released from a Stewart County federal detention center.

Paz Amigos

St. Thomas, Columbus

The first people Dan Ginter took home with him were two men from Cuba. They had been released after being held for months in the massive federal immigration detention center in Stewart County. He met them through Paz Amigos, a nonprofit organization that works with released detainees.

At Ginter’s house, the men nervously awaited their families, and, in the wee hours of the next morning, Ginter witnessed two joyful reunions—first with a wife and son, and then with a mother, father, and wife. As tears of happiness and relief flowed, Ginter may have shed a few himself.

A veteran U.S. Army helicopter pilot, Ginter said he had known people from other countries who wanted to get to the United States. “They want the same things we do,” he said. “Most of it is freedom.”

The detention center has housed people from more than 140 countries. As a volunteer, Ginter shows friendship and hospitality to people from around the world who have not been treated hospitably by the U.S. customs system. He became involved after a speaker at his church told the congregation about Paz Amigos.

“My wife and I went down to the prison,” he said. “We met a guy from Africa. He was behind plexiglass.” They had to talk to him on a phone full of static, and it was hard to hear. He was a champion of taekwondo for his country, Ginter said. “I had taken taekwondo, and we developed a real rapport.”

Since that first visit, Ginter has worked with people from several countries. Some have come to escape dire circumstances, such as a man from Guatemala who walked through jungles to get to the United States to keep from being forced into a death squad. 

Google Translate has enabled Ginter to communicate with speakers of Chinese, Spanish, and other languages he never learned. Some men he has met have kept in touch with him, sending photographs, greeting cards, and even a valentine.

Paz Amigos was formally organized in 2019, after some Columbus residents learned that almost two thousand men, many seeking asylum, were being held at the detention center about forty miles away. The organization was inspired by Susan Krysak, who, on her own, had been helping those who were released after learning that they were put on the street with no food and no money. Now Paz Amigos—Peace Friends—is notified when people are being released so that a volunteer can help them arrange transportation and communication with relatives and get them food, suitable clothing, and a hotel room if necessary. If a detainee is picked up in summer clothes, he is released in those clothes, even if it’s February, Ginter said.

Paz Amigos, like much of the country, has been “in limbo” with COVID-19, Ginter said. Two detainees had died of the virus as of August, and 154 detainees and seventy-nine employees had tested positive, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Ginter and other Paz Amigos volunteers hope to give immigrants who are released a pleasant second impression of the United States. “This is about treating people humanely,” Ginter said. “We’re doing what God wants us to do. We’re trying to help our neighbor.”

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What started as a ministry for hungry children, Back Snacks has now grown to encompass the entire community.

Back Snacks

St. Nicholas, Hamilton

As a high school junior, Katelyn Flynn volunteered to tutor at Park Elementary School, where her mother was a teacher. She soon realized that if children were hungry, they had trouble concentrating. She started taking popcorn and cereal bars to her tutoring sessions.

That led to thinking about weekends. Park had a significant number of children on the free and reduced-cost lunch program who depended on meals at school. But what about Saturdays and Sundays?

When she visited her paternal grandparents in Kansas City over the Christmas holidays in 2015, her grandmother mentioned that their church provided children with food for the weekend. Katelyn went home with the determination to do the same.

The first step was talking to the principal at Park, ironing out the details about how to handle confidentiality. Next was the job of recruiting help.

“We literally sent letters and called every church in the area,” said Katelyn, who was raised Methodist. On Sundays, she was often invited to explain the program to congregations. “There were times when I was definitely shaking in my boots,” she said. She usually persuaded her brother, Grant, fifteen, to go along for moral support.

At St. Nicholas church, Katelyn found a supportive ally in the then rector, the Rev. Jeff Jackson.

“Father Jeff was already hugely involved with Park,” she said. Through his efforts, Katelyn was able to move the enterprise from her parents’ house to St. Nicholas and secure status as a nonprofit organization.

St. Nicholas holds “packing days” for volunteers from the parish and other churches and stores the supplies. Students at five schools in Harris County—three elementary schools, an intermediate school for fourth and fifth grades, and a middle school—now receive much-needed meals for the weekend.

Each Friday students in need pick up a backpack loaded with two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners, and four snacks. They return the empty bag on Monday.

“It’s all foods kids can prepare on their own,” Katelyn said. “The reality is some kids are home alone.” Immediately before spring break and other extended holiday periods, students receive boxes of food. “The Christmas boxes get pretty big,” Katelyn said.

During COVID-19 isolation, Back Snacks “was feeding whoever wanted to come,” Katelyn said. “They were doing drive-through pickup.”

When Katelyn left for Auburn University four years ago, Grant and a friend took over the program. Two years later, Grant left for the University of Georgia. Back Snacks is now run by St. Nicholas in partnership with several other churches.

Katelyn, who graduated from Auburn in May 2020, is enrolled in the University of Georgia for a master’s degree. Both she and Grant plan to be social workers.

To students in Harris County, they already are.

Above
After receiving a prayer shawl when she was widowed, Jan Kramer began knitting shawls to give other people comfort.