• By Teresa Bryant
• Posted Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Student Life Group & RAPP Partner again! Service with a smile!

A smile can generate great emotions! Smiles and ‘hands on support’ from the Student Life Team missions group gives even more: encouragement, support, and faith in action.

The hot days of June were no match for groups on a mission to serve with Student Life. The Student Life Program allows young adults and youth ‘hands on’ volunteering for projects to meet the needs of local families.

The Student Life Group partners with groups annually to provide community service. This year was the second year of partnership for Student Life and the Forsyth County Department of Social Services’ Relatives as Parents Program, RAPP, to team up serving and supporting three RAPP families.

The three families include: a grandmother raising a 13 year-old-grandson; grandparents raising multiple grand children, ranging in age, from 5-years-old to 18-years-old and an aunt raising a ten-year-old nephew while also care giving to her eighty-three year old mother. This annual project is a tremendous support to families individually and support relatives raising relatives’ children as a collective dynamic group.

The National Student Life Organization has conferences annually across the country. The Triad is a host site annually at Wake Forest University. The group will serve families this summer by providing free labor. The families provide the materials and the Student Life group provides the ‘repair’ or ‘fix-it’ services. The families will receive several repairs to include: room painting, floor work, yard and landscaping work and other household general maintenance type work.

The Student Life group this year serves and brings smiles from First United Methodist Church, from St. Joseph, Michigan and a “Kids Camp” through the Weed and Seed Program of St. Joseph, Michigan under the coordination of Daniel Colthrop and Jordan Lawrence, site coordinator. The group worked three days last week, June 14, June 15 and June 16, to complete the family wishes or needs.

Relatives as Parents Program, RAPP, families are usually biological family members who have unexpectedly assumed the responsibility of parenting a child from their family without the benefit of resources associated with a more formal arrangement like foster care. Anyone interested in supporting relatives can contact Teresa Bryant at bryanttc@forsyth.cc or call 336-703-3744.