New Hope Church Uses State Missions Grant to Support Community’s Students in Virtual School

Because of your gifts to the Alma Hunt Offering for Virginia Missions in 2020, churches were able to meet real needs in real time that arose because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We recently received this letter from David Schleyer from New Hope Church in Lorton, VA, explaining how they used the grant funds they applied for and received from the state missions offering:

We are so excited and proud to share with you how we used the 2020 Alma Hunt State Missions Offering Fund Grant we received. A little back story first: At New Hope Church in Lorton, VA, we run several child care programs for the local community to include a preschool, before and after school care, and full-day summer camp. When COVID struck, we wanted to be able to serve the families in our community somehow. Kids were not going to their traditional elementary schools and were all virtual. Also, most local preschools were not opening. We knew we had to do something. Many of the families we have served who live in the communities around our church in Lorton are two-income families, had jobs where they were deemed essential, and could not work from home.

After a lot of research and prayer, we decided to utilize our building like never before to open the programs. It was a huge undertaking. The elementary students are with us for their school day, where they watch school on their laptops. The struggle was that we didn’t have the high-speed internet nor the bandwidth to host 70+ kids all at the same time. Additionally, we needed to utilize areas of the building that were not intended for students and preschoolers. Converting and preparing the building came with a cost. We knew that our goal was not to make any money, and if we broke even, we knew God would be happy.

As I write this, we are happy to report that over 200 children representing 160 families have been blessed through the programs we’ve provided. The 2020 Alma Hunt State Missions Offering Fund Grant went to wiring the classrooms with CAT cables and switches, allowed us to upgrade our internet bandwidth, and provide each class with a resource cart and PC cart (see photo). The PC carts are great and offer the kids a chance to play group games and get their wiggles out after being in class for several hours. They enjoy broadcasting their PE class on the bigger screen, and on Friday afternoons they enjoy an end-of-the-week movie.

Thanks so much for providing much-needed funds to help support the amazing, God-inspiring work we are able to do in our communities!

Now we take a quick breath, honor God by giving him thanks and glory, and get ready to serve the community with our annual summer camp. Thanks again!