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Celebrating B-SAFE with ice cream.
When B-SAFE began in 2000 as a safe haven for about 30 children in a neighborhood plagued by violence, the Rev. Tim Crellin says he could not have imagined that it would grow to the size and scope the program has today.
“[When the program began] I was focused on the needs of children and families in the South End,” said Crellin, Vicar of St. Stephen’s Church in Boston’s South End and founder of B-SAFE. “We grew in the breadth of the program as children started to grow up with us, and we wanted to keep them engaged in middle and then high school and beyond.”
From this modest foundation, B-SAFE has expanded to serving 540 children and employing 140 teens across six Episcopal church and school sites: St. Stephen’s Church, Boston; the Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin, Roxbury; St. Mary’s Church, Dorchester; the Church of the Holy Spirit, Mattapan; St. Luke’s/San Lucas Church, Chelsea; and Epiphany School in Dorchester. The Rev. Liz Steinhauser joined B-SAFE as director of youth programming at St. Stephen’s in 2003.
“It was really Tom Shaw's vision that we expand the program to other parts of the city and eventually to Chelsea,” Crellin said. “The B in B-SAFE stands for 'Bishop' because it was his vision and our partnership with Bishop Tom that led to what the program is today.”
When B-SAFE began 15 years ago, it was a place where kids could play and make new friends in a safe, supervised community. It is still all of those things, but according to Steinhauser the program has strengthened its commitment to enrichment and academic programming greatly over the years.
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B-SAFE campers at St. Stephen's working together.
Academic enrichment subjects this year included science, history, the math and science of cooking, a new Business 101 curriculum in the “Numbers Club,” poetry, computer courses and much more. B-SAFE collaborates with local colleges and universities, including Wellesley College, Harvard Medical School and Princeton University, to assemble its academic team, known as the A-team. The A-team plans and runs the academic programing, and organizes specialty days like “A Day in the Life,” when kids can learn about different careers. Keeping young minds active and engaged during the summer helps to combat “summer slide.”
“Studies show that it takes most urban kids until November to catch up to where they were at the end of the previous school year,” said Steinhauser. “That’s the gap we’re trying to close.”
The theme of B-SAFE 2014 was a quote from Nelson Mandela: “It is in your hands to make a better world.” Kids and teens engaged in conversations about local and global citizenship, social justice and how they can be active in their communities. Campers and staff learned about “heroes of justice” including Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Mel King, Chinua Achebe, Cheng Li, Maya Angelou and Bishop Barbara C. Harris. Teen artists created large portraits of these heroes, and the finished products will be hung at St. Stephen’s.
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B-SAFE campers get active at St. Mary's Dorchester.
This year B-SAFE provided jobs or internships to 150 teens, the most jobs the program has ever offered. Of those, 20 are rising eighth graders who are leadership interns, and 24 are older teens (18 and 19) who serve in advanced leadership positions. More than 20 teen volunteers from partner churches and organizations have also given their time to B-SAFE this summer. Teens who work for B-SAFE meet weekly for three-hour staff meetings. This year, these meetings featured programming about topics including financial literacy, planning for college, healthy relationships and civic engagement. Junior counselors in training, who are rising eighth graders, also visited local college campuses and museums.
B-SAFE formed several new church partnerships this year. Ten churches and religious orders from the diocese became B-SAFE partners this year: the Church of the Advent, Boston; the Society of St. John the Evangelist; St. Anne’s Church, Billerica; St. Andrew’s Church, Ayer; St. John’s Church, Charlestown; All Saints' Church, Chelmsford; the Society of St. Margaret; Grace Church, Everett; St. Elizabeth’s Church, Sudbury; and Trinity Church, Woburn. B-SAFE also formed new partnerships with community organizations: a new partnership with Cooking Matters provided new programming about cooking and healthy eating, and an expanded partnership with the Dorchester Youth Collaborative provided training about voter engagement and politics for teens. (Complete list of B-SAFE partners below).
“We also now have 60 partner congregations that help to make B-SAFE happen every summer, and more than 1,000 volunteers,” said Crellin. “We started with just four partners. The growth in that aspect of the program and the incredible commitment of the partner churches has been extremely gratifying.”
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St. Michael's Milton: The Rev. Hall Kirkham, Bill Mullen, William Swanson, Judith Sandanato, Susie Swanson, Scott Mullen, Erin Lehman.
Erin Lehman, of St. Michael’s Church in Milton, managed lunch for a week at B-SAFE’s location at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mattapan, buying food and preparing lunches for 80 campers.
“It’s a simple thing, serving a good lunch, chatting with them, finding out what’s on their mind,” Lehman said. “It was humbling because it was so simple."
St. Michael’s organized a group of six to eight volunteers, including three teens, to provide lunch for campers and staff at B-SAFE. A group of veteran St. Michael’s volunteers also coordinated one of B-SAFE’s Friday field trips, a boat trip to Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor. This was Lehman’s first year coordinating volunteers with B-SAFE. “The training is incredibly well organized and it’s very easy for a volunteer to get involved,” she said.
Lehman said that working with B-SAFE is not only an opportunity to reach out to a city neighborhood; it’s also a chance to strengthen relationships among parishioners.
“I’m sort of new to [St. Michael’s] and I love the volunteerism and the sense of family there,” Lehman said. “It’s not earth-shattering what we do, but everyone is so happy to help. Everyone is just so generous of heart.”
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Bishop Gayle Harris with the Rev. Liz Steinhauser, the Rev. Tim Crellin, and a group of B-SAFE campers at the 15th anniversary celebration.
B-SAFE marked its 15th anniversary with an all-site celebration at Larz Anderson Park in Brookline on July 15. Students, teen counselors and adult staff, former staff, parishioners from St. Stephen’s, guests from partner organizations and Bishop Gayle E. Harris were all in attendance. Children had their faces painted, made giant bubbles with coat hangers, played capture the flag and enjoyed treats from the ice cream truck.
“[It was] exactly the way the event was meant to be celebrated—with everyone feeling ‘big, safe and connected’,” wrote Janet Boswell, B-SAFE’s director of development and communications, on the 2014 blog.
The 15th anniversary celebration was an opportunity for B-SAFE campers past and present to come together. It was the first time that campers from all six sites were united for a single event, as well as an opportunity for past campers to reconnect.
“So many of our staff members are former program participants, and we now have a second generation of participants--children whose parents were part of the program in the past,” said Crellin. “It makes me feel a little bit old, but it's amazing to see that we've had an impact over time by consistently sharing God's love with children in communities where the need for that witness is great.”
--Ellen Stuart Kittle
B-SAFE 2014 Partners
St. James’s Church, Amesbury
St. Andrew’s Church, Ayer
St. Paul’s Church, Bedford
St. John’s Church, Beverly Farms
St. Anne’s Church, Billerica
Christ Church (Old North), Boston
Church of the Advent, Boston
Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin, Boston
Emmanuel Church, Boston
St. Stephen’s Church, Boston
Trinity Church, Boston
Boston Partners in Education, Boston
Boston Youth Fund, Boston
All Saints Parish, Brookline
St. Paul’s Church, Brookline
St. Mark’s Church, Burlington
Christ Church, Cambridge
Harvard School of Medicine, Cambridge
Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge
St. John’s Church, Charlestown
All Saints' Church, Chelmsford
St. Luke’s/San Lucas Church, Chelsea
Chelsea Collaborative, Chelsea
Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill
St. Stephen’s Church, Cohasset
Trinity Church, Concord
Epiphany School, Dorchester
St. Mary’s Church, Dorchester
St. Dunstan’s Church, Dover
Society of St. Margaret, Duxbury
Grace Church, Everett
Linden Ponds Interfaith Council, Hingham
Parish of St. John the Evangelist, Hingham
St. Michael’s Church, Holliston
Ascension Memorial Church, Ipswich
St. Anne’s in-the-Fields Church, Lincoln
St. Paul’s Church, Lynnfield
St. Paul’s Church, Malden
St. Andrew's Church, Marblehead
Church of the Holy Spirit, Mattapan
Church of the Advent, Medfield
Grace Church, Medford
St. Michael’s Church, Milton
St. Paul’s Church, Natick
Christ Church, Needham
Grace Church, Newton
Trinity Parish, Newton Centre
Parish of St. Paul, Newton Highlands
St. Mary’s Church, Newton Lower Falls
Grace Church, Norwood
St. Chrysostom's Church, Quincy
Church of the Good Shepherd, Reading
St. Elizabeth’s Church, Sudbury
Parish of the Good Shepherd, Waban
Epiphany Parish, Walpole
Christ Church, Waltham
Church of the Holy Spirit, Wayland
St. Andrew’s Church, Wellesley
St. Peter’s Church, Weston
St. John’s Church, Westwood
Parish of the Epiphany, Winchester
Trinity Church, Woburn