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STORM LAKE, Iowa — When Boxanne returns from Synod School to its home at Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, later this week, it’ll be loaded with kits to serve the needs of people impacted by disaster or who have other ongoing needs.
Boxanne is the name Ferncliff gave to its box truck, which Emily Hooker, Ferncliff’s Director of Mission and Outreach, drove from Little Rock, Arkansas to Storm Lake, Iowa so that Hooker could experience Synod School and return home with 933 hygiene kits, 623 period packs, 544 kids’ kits, 82 school bags and 12 boxes of loose extra supplies.
Elementary-aged Synod Schoolers assembled 262 kids’ kits this week. Middle schoolers, high schoolers and adults put together nearly 600 hygiene kits. Once Boxanne is back in Little Rock, each kit — no matter the age of the person who assembled it — will be inspected for quality control and then re-boxed.
In addition to their generosity filling and packing the kits, Synod School attendees donated nearly $8,500 to purchase items to fill the various kits.
Ferncliff’s Disaster Assistance Center is one of three warehouses for Church World Service. The DAC serves both CWS and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.
On Wednesday, Synod School participants posed for pictures inside and alongside Boxanne. Hooker was beaming along with the gathered children.
The committee that organizes Synod School “was gracious to include this as part of the program,” Hooker said.
For years, Hooker’s friend, the Rev. Erin Kaye, senior pastor of United Presbyterian Church in Washington, Iowa, has been encouraging her friend to give Synod School a try. Often Kaye concludes her time at Synod School by driving to the Disaster Assistance Center with 200 or so kits, Hooker said.
“Last year, she had the idea to bring the box truck so [Synod Schoolers] don’t have to worry about shipping them and I could take them with me in the truck, Hooker said.
“Erin has been talking to me for ages about how amazing Synod School is. I believed her, but I thought, how great can it be?” Hooker said. “I have been struck by how intentional this conference is. [Organizers] have thought hard about making this the best experience for the most people.”
In the children and youth programs, adults who make the programs go “aren’t just babysitters.” Some classes “are highbrow, and some are just fun. The staff here at Buena Vista University is really kind, and [Synod School] leadership has a good idea about how the flow happens.”
“It was wonderful coming in and not feeling like an outsider,” Hooker said. “It’s like walking into a family reunion.”
She labeled the Synod School’s prodigious contributions “huge.”
“For Ferncliff, it gives us a lot to add to our inventory,” she said. “Having a lot of kits at the ready means we can respond that day or the next. If we don’t have kits on hand when disaster happens, we are scrambling.”
On Tuesday, the Disaster Assistance Center at Ferncliff received a call for 720 buckets and more than 400 period packs to help people dealing with flooding in the Texas Hill Country and in South-Central Texas. “We put that together and sent it out [Wednesday] because we had it in our inventory,” she said. “It means we can respond to the next request right away.”
By Mike Ferguson, Presbyterian News Service
