SPARK (Support Program of Arts and Reading for Kids)
Presbyterian Urban Missions Inc.
Peggy Garrett-Selfridge, Director
1008 N. McKinley
Oklahoma City, Okla.
(405) 235-6855

The pretty old turn-of-the-century stone building that once housed Second Presbyterian Church took on a new life after its congregation dwindled to a handful as a result of suburban flight in the early 1970s. No longer a church but still an active ministry of the Presbytery of Oklahoma City, it now houses the busy, active emergency-service and self-reliance programs of Presbyterian Urban Missions.

It began as a direct, emergency-response agency providing social services in 1975, and has grown into a holistic program, still providing a broad range of emergency services ranging from a food pantry, clothes closet, and emergency financial assistance to SPARK, an innovative after-school program that nourishes youngsters' bodies and their minds, and involves their parents as well.

SPARK (Support Program of Arts and Reading for Kids), a model after-school program, brings together the critical elements of feeding (Kids Cafe), tutoring, mentoring and role-modeling in a safe environment that serves as an alternative to gangs for youngsters in the church's neighborhood, a residential zone of shade trees and broad lawns where the environment appears suburban but deceptively cloaks crack houses, gang activity and quietly desperate poverty among an ethnically and culturally mixed population. SPARK's van picks up participating kids -- 60 grade-school youngsters daily, plus a handful of older brothers and sisters -- and brings them to the organization's bright meeting room in the church basement, where they begin with a healthy Kids Cafe meal and progress to homework, games, arts and field trips; the facility stays open until 6 p.m. or until everyone's parents are home.

SPARK is funded by several local churches, housed in the former church building that Second Presbyterian Church left when its congregation moved to the suburbs in 1972. Its staff of three gets by on a $10,000 budget for SPARK and Kids Care, supplemented by lots of volunteers. SPARK makes a special effort to involve the parents of its young charges as volunteers in hope of building stronger families and helping them break the cycle of poverty.

Other key activities at Presbyterian Urban Missions include a free clothes closet, a large food pantry that serves 800 to 1,200 recipients a month (of whom more than half are under 18), and a delightful seasonal project, Santa's Store, that turns the former church sanctuary into a lively toy shop in which parents can pick and choose among donated toys rather than simply enduring the luck of the draw. (There's a shelf where youngsters can shop for modest presents for their parents, too.) This program made a Merry Christmas possible for 540 youngsters last year.

Other features include a small pharmacy distributing non-narcotic, over-the-counter medications; and, based on the successful Santa Store model, a back-to-school store where youngsters whose families can't afford to buy school supplies can pick up new materials donated by the Target Stores chain.

Remarkably, this busy program gets all this done, serving a huge clientele in a poor part of town, with a staff of just three full-time workers (bolstered by 500 volunteers) and an annual budget of just $115,000.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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