Franklinton Center at Bricks

5/29/2013 - by: Andy Gustafson

Editor's note: Associate Conference Minister Andy Gustafson is on sabbatical, traveling across the country. He will be visiting United Church of Christ Justice and Witness immersion centers and mission sites and blogging about what he sees. His posts about those sites will be posted here on macucc.org. His full travel blog is here: http://travelblogs.mapquest.com/32860/changing-lives-tour.

Vivian Lukas, Director and Diana Allen, Office Manager, Franklinton Center

It was my privilege to visit the UCC Franklinton Center at Bricks in Whitakers, NC today. The Franklinton Center is directly tied to New England and Northern Congregationalists of the American Missionary Association who founded schools in the South after the Civil War for newly freed slaves. The site is a former slave plantation purchased by a Mrs. Bricks to start the school. Today education is still central to the purpose of the center, both for people in the community on food, nutrition, literacy and for UCC and other folks who visit for retreats and conferences. Vivian Lukas, Diana Allen and Eunice Carrasco-Hill are our UCC staff who run the center. The new hospitality house has hotel quality rooms and a wonderful Fellowship Hall named in honor of Yvonne Delk, longtime leader in the UCC on Justice issues, and who happened to be at Bricks today.

Two important projects through which Franklinton Center is changing lives are the Just Food Project and the Literacy Project. Franklinton Center is located in one of the poorest counties in North Carolina. Food insecurity and educational deficits are realities facing children. The Franklinton Center's literacy project is reaching children and adults through summer enrichment programs, adult literacy programs, after school tutoring and many more activities. The Just Food Project operates a local farmer's market, maintains a sustainable community garden, provides education in healthy cooking ,eating and food preservation and physical fitness programs. To learn more about how we in the UCC are changing lives at the Franklinton Center, visit their website: www.ucc.org/franklinton-center, or call them at 252-437-1723.

There is a sense of peace, of holiness and wholeness at the Center which can only be experienced in person. The trip is well worth it and I hope many from the UCC will have a chance to visit.

At right, Vivian Lukas, Director and Diana Allen, Office Manager.

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Author

Andy Gustafson

The late Andy Gustasfon served as the Associate Conference Minister for Stewardship and Financial Development from 2004 to 2014.