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Date: August 6, 2002 
Nine months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Cheryl Holt-Andrews asked the children at the after-school program at Tremont United Methodist Church to write – or, if they were under 5, draw – about their feelings of the events of that day. She was horrified that, months later, the children still drew pictures of the World Trade Center's twin towers under attack by airplanes and engulfed in flames. "That had the most impact on me," she says. "The older children, they can talk about it; these (younger) children have been holding it in all this time."
Tremont, in the Bronx, is one of the many United Methodist churches in New York City's five boroughs that are continuing to respond to people affected by the events of Sept. 11. The denomination's New York Annual (regional) Conference has allocated $1 million in grants to help fund local church programs. The conference received the money from the United Methodist Committee on Relief's "Love in the Midst of Tragedy" Sept. 11 fund-raising appeal.
The Rev. Charles Straut, Jr., coordinator of the conference's Sept. 11 disaster response task force, says it makes sense to use UMCOR resources from faithful church members "in places like New York, where street-level ministry is needed now." The conference has been gratified by the financial support from the denomination, he adds.
Strategically, "the whole local church initiatives concept was chosen because we knew that the local church is really the most important social service agency in our society," Straut explains.
So when funds became available to help New York congregations respond to the aftermath of Sept. 11, the conference encouraged churches "to use their imaginations to devise new ways of reaching out to people in need who are outside their doors."
In New York, the Sept. 11 fallout has spread far beyond the direct victims in the World Trade Center to others who have been affected both economically and psychologically. Those experienced with disaster situations also point out that the indirect effects "not only continue for a long time but sometimes increase in severity as time goes by," Straut notes.
That's why the largest single grant of $250,000, for example, will be used to help expand the food pantry program at the United Methodist Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Called the West Side Campaign Against Hunger, the program has provided food for 725,000 meals to 80,500 people in the first half of 2002, compared to 523,000 meals to 80,500 people for all of 2001. It was one of 15 programs honored in June by the New York State Department of Health for "serving a significant role in advancing the health and well-being of our children, families and communities."
The Rev. James Karpen, pastor at St. Paul and St. Andrew, says the number of people using the basement food pantry was expected to drop after hitting a plateau during the winter, but instead it has increased again to the number seen directly after Sept. 11. By the end of summer, the numbers are expected to be higher than last fall, he adds.
"Getting that grant helped us to move ahead with drafting the construction documents for that project," he says. The expansion will mean quick service rather than the two-hour wait that can sometimes occur these days, he says. "It will allow us to continue to provide some additional service to them, such as counseling and referral to other agencies, in a more respectful and dignified manner."
Other grants to local churches are being used for counseling services, children's programs, clergy workshops and multicultural and interfaith programs. Some projects are new, while others are incorporated into ongoing programs.
The United Methodist City Society has provided funding and technical assistance to local churches for specialized after-school programs since 1997. April Callender, the society's associate executive director for human services and program development, says that after Sept. 11, she and the directors of those programs talked about how they should respond. "A lot of us kind of underestimated what they (the kids) saw, how they processed it," she explains.
With a $33,500 grant from the conference, the city society worked with the program directors to help them recognize the signs of trauma and learn how to deal with it, and to try to gauge whether the current programs could handle the extra needs. "We also used some of the money for creative outlets for the kids," Callender says.
She encouraged the directors to apply for New York Conference grants for their own programs, and some did. Tremont, for example, where the year-round program now draws 154 to 172 children daily, received $45,000.
Holt-Andrews, whose husband escaped from the World Trade Center covered in soot, says she didn't begin to comprehend the impact of Sept. 11 on New York schoolchildren until about a month later. In Harlem, where she teaches school, a fire evacuation that was not conducted in a routine way left the sixth-graders so traumatized that they had to be sent home. That's when she conferred with Callender about how to address effects of Sept. 11 in the Tremont program.
Part of Tremont's response included making a trip to Washington, to show a group of children that the events of Sept. 11 affected areas outside New York. Holt-Andrews also has received advice from the Red Cross. "Before the end of the summer, we're going to have rap sessions with counselors," she adds.
The Chinese United Methodist Church in Manhattan's Chinatown, less than two miles from the World Trade Center, also has responded to the trauma caused to children in that neighborhood, according to the Rev. James K. Law. The church's Chinese Methodist Community Center serves about 175 students through its after-school programs and day care services. About half of the children attend P.S. 1, directly across the street, and many P.S. 1 students were on the playground when the attacks occurred. "These children witnessed the attack firsthand in its entirety, from the (first) plane crashing into the towers to the destruction of both towers," Law says.
Center staff members are making psychological assessments to identify children and staff who need counseling. A $14,000 grant from the New York Conference will fund the assessment and follow-up counseling sessions.
Law points out that Chinatown itself – which suffered disruptions for weeks after Sept. 11 – remains deeply affected by the terrorist attacks. "Many low-wage workers became unemployed, and many small-business owners worried about their firms' prospects," he says, noting that 23 percent of all workers in Chinatown were laid off in the three months after Sept. 11.
On some levels, the trauma remains citywide. That's why the Rev. Taka Ishii, pastor of Metropolitan-Duane United Methodist Church on West 13th Street, wants to keep his church's listening post open. "We've never closed our building since Sept. 11," he says. "Our ministry is to continue to be present here and listening to those people that come in."
Current conference funding for the listening post continues through September. Ishii hopes to get another grant from UMCOR to extend through March. He estimates that the listening post costs $85,000 annually.
Open from noon to 6 p.m. weekdays, the listening post provides a place to express grief or pause for reflection. Spanish- and English-speaking prayer partners are present, and an on-site bilingual case manager is available on Thursdays to assist community members with basic issues of housing, food and employment. Counseling referrals are made if needed. The pastor notes that many of the 40 or so who show up each day are not residents but work in the area and live in different parts of the city.
Members of Park Slope United Methodist Church in Brooklyn are involved in a different type of listening. Although "The Dialogue Project," drawing Muslims, Jews, Christians and others into conversations about Middle East conflicts, started in March 2001, its significance has increased since Sept. 11, according to the Rev. Elizabeth Braddon, pastor.
Braddon, whose dialogue group had met two days before the terrorist attacks, says she was particularly grateful for the initial contact it had provided with the Muslim community. Her group met again just before the United States invaded Afghanistan. "The significance of being in that grouping at both of those times was just incredible," she adds.
Marcia Kannry, a community activist and Jewish woman who had lived in Israel, started the Dialogue Project, which received a $32,325 grant from the New York Conference. She says she approached Braddon because the Park Slope church "has a history of being open" to the community. "Liz was the first person who let me come to her church and speak from her pulpit," Kannry recalls.
With the church funding and other fund raising, the project has grown from one dialogue circle to five operating circles and two developing circles. The groups of 15-30 people meet monthly. For those who find it difficult to talk with others about the issues of Middle East conflict, the project also has sponsored interfaith events that "allow people to relate in a very different way," she says.
Braddon notes that concerns for local Arab communities immediately after Sept. 11 led to the realization that "we need to understand these communities better." A group called "Brooklyn Bridges" was formed to find ways to work together with the communities, and Braddon also secured an $18,350 grant to initially fund the "Coney Island Avenue Project," which connects specifically with the Pakistani community.
More information about the Sept. 11 response of New York Conference churches is available by contacting the Rev. Charles Straut Jr. by telephone at (212) 206-8930 or sending an e-mail message to nyacdart@aol.com.
Source: United Methodist News Service.
Linda Bloom is news writer in United Methodist News Service's New York office.
UMCOR 9/11 Update September 2004: UMCOR's response to the aftermath of September 11 continues. We thank are thankful for all of contributions that United Methodists and others have so generously given.
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