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Note: MVPC was organized in January 1953.
“For it is in giving that we receive.”
---St. Francis of Assisi
“The Church exists by mission as fire exists by burning.”
---Emil Brunner
And so it is, and has been for more than five decades, at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church. In the words of MVPC Charter member and historian Howard S. Walker: “Throughout the years, an inseparable part of the church’s expression has been outreach, reaching out beyond our church doors to be of service, where needed, to our community, both local and worldwide.”
1961 --- Mt. Vernon Presbyterian began supporting overseas missionaries by contributing each year to the work of Reverend and Mrs. Robert Reinhold in the Belgian Congo, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Women of the Church and church schools shipped many barrels of relief aid, including sewing supplies, to the Reinholds during the 13 years of their ministry in the dangerous central Congo. Over the years, the church also has helped missionaries in Mexico, South Korea, Lesotho, and Kenya.
November 1963 --- A trailer store was established by Mount Vernon Presbyterian volunteers at Gum Springs, a disadvantaged African American community established originally by George Washington’s slaves. Gum Springs is located about three quarters of a mile west of the church. In 1966, a class of 15 Gum Springs pre-schoolers was brought to MVPC for twice weekly learning sessions and this was expanded to a tutoring program for children and adults. Other congregations were invited to form the Gum Springs Cooperating Ministry of Mount Vernon area churches, which also supported the store. In 1969, with significant leadership from MVPC, United Community Ministries was formed, serving the entire area and Route 1 corridor. Church historian Walker called it “probably the most momentous and dynamic segment in the chronicle of Mount Vernon Presbyterian’s outreach endeavors.”
1971 --- Mount Vernon-Lee Enterprises (MVLE), a non-profit organization providing rehabilitation, developmental job training and placement services for developmentally disabled adults was founded at MVPC (housed in the CE building) and has benefited from several MVPC members on its’ board of directors. Two members currently serve as officers of MVLE. Today, over 350 individuals with disabilities are served through a variety of center-based and community-based support services and employment service choices.
March 1972 --- A homeless family with two small children was housed and fed for a week in the MVPC barn, and then supported by the deacons’ fund and contributions from another church after the family found housing of their own. During the 1970s and early 1980s, MVPC became aware of the magnitude of homelessness along Route 1 and surrounding areas. Serious talks began with Ventures in Community, the area’s ecumenical coalition. In November 1983, the MVPC session approved the use of the church family room in the barn for sheltering the homeless. For 94 nights through the bitter winter, lodging was provided, supervised by MVPC and three other churches. Eventually another ten congregations joined in, helping with overnight monitoring and meals. The program continued for another two years, and nearly 7,000 homeless people were accommodated. The churches took the lead in persuading the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to act. Subsequently, in December 1986, a facility was opened to shelter the homeless, eventually to be called the Eleanor U. Kennedy Shelter. It became part of Route 1 Corridor Housing, which also operates Mondloch House, a temporary emergency complex in the Hybla Valley area and an outgrowth of United Community Ministries.
1973 --- Meals on Wheels came to MVPC through the efforts of Norma Granley as an extension of the Alexandria program. As Howard Walker said: “Many MVPC members keep Meals on Wheels rolling, and to all these volunteers it is a richly rewarding experience”. Today, many MVPC members continue to participate in this program.
1993 --- Mount Vernon Presbyterian launched Families in Transition (FIT.) Initially called Transitional Housing, MVPC volunteer counselors began training at Mondloch House. Soon after that, the church allocated funds to lease two apartments from the RPJ Housing Development Corporation. There was then a year of intensive ‘partnering’ with two single parent, previously homeless families. FIT was incorporated in the late 1990s as the Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church Social Ministries Inc., a non-profit. Today, six families are being helped by FIT, the most extensive program of its type in the Washington, D.C. area. Among its success stories: 1) a single parent with a family came to FIT with an annual income of $10,000. With counseling, she obtained an entry level job at a law firm, and eventually became a paralegal. 2) an African-American mother with a son, daughter and granddaughter completed a master’s degree program and was able to purchase her own home.
1996 --- The church joined the Children’s Friendship Project of Northern Ireland. Under this program, two teenagers from northern Ireland --- one a Catholic and the other a Protestant --- are paired to share an experience of six weeks in an American home. This is a neutral setting for interacting with their hosts here and each other and discovering what they have in common. The idea is to sow seeds of peace and build bridges of understanding between Irish youth to help ease generations of hostility. Since the project began a decade ago, ten pairs of teens from Northern Ireland have been hosted by five different MVPC families. One of the young visitors was so inspired by the missionary spirit he witnessed here that he undertook a mission trip of his own to Mongolia after spending several weeks with his host family in Alexandria.
August 1998 --- MVPC launched Mission to the Mountains, intergenerational summer work camps to help people in need in the Appalachian region. This included roofing, painting, digging ditches, fellowship, and spending time getting to know the homeowners being helped. The first team had 14 members, working in rural Kentucky. In 1999, the summer force grew to 28, on a mission to an inner city neighborhood in Wheeling, West Virginia. In 2000, working with nearby Heritage and Calvary Presbyterian churches, the workforce grew to 52 in a reconstruction effort in flood-damaged Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Every year since, MVPC has sent teams of youth with their leaders, often joining other churches, to Worthington, Ohio, and to several other communities in the Appalachians. Intergenerational MVPC groups also have assembled clothing and supplies for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and for Gulf of Mexico communities ravaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Several members of the congregation helped construct pre-fabricated housing under the auspices of Habitat for Humanity for transport to the Gulf coast.
November 1999 --- MVPC established Agape Reservoir, a ministry of wholeness to serve individuals affected by emotional, physical or mental disorders. Local churches and medical personnel have referred some of the participants to Agape, but many have heard of it by word of mouth. At one time or another, about a quarter of MVPC’s members have been helpers in the kitchen, drivers, workshop leaders and individual counselors in Agape. In the words of one member: “Ministry to us is not just an act of charity, but also a matter of justice. Agape Reservoir helps us to overcome society’s rejection and feel welcome and whole.” On February 3, 2006, Burke Presbyterian Church began a ministry modeled after Agape --- with northern Virginia now accommodating two of an estimated dozen and a half such programs nationwide.
2003 --- Working with the Methodist Church-sponsored Highland Support Project in Richmond, MVPC under the leadership of Faye Higdon began organizing teams of overseas mission teams to help with construction projects and tree planting in the mountains of Guatemala. Members of the congregation have been deployed to Mayan Indian villages there to build concrete block ovens that greatly reduce health hazards for the families in the highlands, and conserve firewood as well. By planting trees, the mission teams also seek to alleviate erosion and mudslides such as those that devastated the region in 2005. In July of this year, the largest team of more than a dozen MVPC participants --- including families as well as individuals --- plans to undertake the fourth consecutive summer mission aimed at helping more highlands villages in recovery and transformational development.
2005 --- Members of the Congregation, and most especially our pastors Bob Criswell and Jeri Fields, worked many long hours and attended numerous meetings with civic organizations advocating policies to prevent Mount Vernon Hospital from shutting down operations. This continues to be a possible problem for the Mount Vernon Community.
2006 --- Our Outreach Council worked with many local area churches and organizations helping to run the Ventures in Community (VIC) Hypothermia Shelter at Rising Hope Church during February and March. The purpose of the shelter was to prevent hypothermia deaths among the homeless population during the coldest months of the year. The program was a success. Along with other churches in the Mount Vernon area, MVPC received a certificate of recognition from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors for providing volunteers to staff the Shelter. Over 30 members of the Congregation participated in this program, most notably including the late Jackie McDaniel. Many other friends of MVPC also participated.
The following starts with initial planning for our new Fellowship Hall in the 1990's (Chapter 1). It was written in 8 chapters by Howard S. Walker, Founding Member of MVPC. Earlier and later history is under construction.
C H A P T E R 1
“We need a new building!”
Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.
- Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819-1881)
THE DATE IS JANUARY 24, 1993. The place is the spacious hall at Aldersgate United Methodist Church, filled by a host of friends, members, and former members of Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church. The occasion is a sumptuous dinner celebrating the fortieth anniversary of MVPC. Not having sufficient space and facilities to accommodate such a crowd, we had to call on the kindness of our neighbor church.
Amid all the joys of that evening was a common plaint: “We need a new building of our own where we can hold such affairs.” It was not a new lament, for we had recognized the need for many years. It was a requirement, we strongly believed, to make possible an expansion of programs and community services.
Further, it is an inherent tendency of organized Presbyterian life to provide for broad fellowship and abundant, frequent dining! MVPC’s kitchen facilities, however, have been less than adequate until the year 2000. The first congregational dinner (potluck) was held March 1, 1953 (six weeks after organization of the church) in the Hollin Hall School, with fifty adults and forty-five children attending. Schools and other churches were often used in ensuing years for large events.
The first “catered” affair was a dinner served October 1, 1953 to a meeting of twenty to twenty-five Men of the Church members on the lower level of the sanctuary, the former horse barn. With kitchen facilities totally nonexistent, the main course (spaghetti) was cooked at home, then warmed up on tiny hotplates safely placed on the floor! By the spring of 1954 we had converted the former cow barn into a temporary Christian education/fellowship facility, complete with a fairly adequate kitchen (yet nothing to compare with our year 2000 model!). That building remained in use until construction on the present sanctuary, completed in 1964, was begun. The Christian education building, now virtually reconstructed and a part of our newest facility, dates from 1960. From then until the year 2000 we were still lacking adequate space and kitchen facilities for congregational and community fellowship and dining.
So, it is no wonder that on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary dinner in 1993 we were almost clamoring for a new building as we had been for some years. By that time, because of collective daydreaming by the congregation and its support of a series of actions taken by the session, we could visualize the eventual fruition of our dreams. In between there would be hurdles to cross, difficult decisions to face, periodic revisions to be made, and the all-important fund raising that had to be geared to construction progress.
AN INITIAL STEP IN THIS BUILDING PROCESS was the appointment in 1990 of former clerks of session to address long-term financial issues. At that moment in history you could not have imagined that the march to completion would consume a full decade, whereas the Pentagon was erected in just three years (1941-1943)! We had recently completed a successful campaign to install a pipe organ and we were determined not to get into a massive fund-raiser until we “got our house in order”. Thus, in 1962 we spent over $60,000 in much needed repairs, remodeling, exterior lighting improvements, and other enhancements, including a new roof for the sanctuary. That work was financed by mini-fund-raisers. (Church leaders and planners are eternally grateful for the dedicated generosity of members at such critical times!)
With that chore behind us, we geared up for the big job ahead. And it was “déjà vu all over again!” More fund raising, in earnest – and only the beginning. As important as that effort must be, however, it was the minds, experience, foresight, creativity, and dedication of the men and women of the session and a series of advisory and operational committees from 1990 to 2000 that would shepherd the project, phase by phase, to successful conclusion.
Throughout the project the session received regular reports of progress and, at crucial junctures, congregational approval was sought and granted to move forward. With each such action and frequent revelations of features to be included in the project, the congregation was buoyed up with images of the new building that we really needed!
In 1992 congregational input was sought through visionary opinion and needs surveys; “Dream on” we were told. (Aren’t many great creations brought into being by collective daydreaming?) And it was time to take more substantive steps. To formulate and carry our the groundwork of this undertaking, a committee called Project ’95 was named: Henry Davis as chairman, Howard Haynes, David Baxa, Richard Siegle, Ruth Guirard, Frank Doe, and Neil McCallum. Hugh McKinnon later replaced Davis. One of their acts was to secure a long-term master plan produced by architects.
IN THE FALL OF 1992 WE FINALLY SAW PLANS for a new building. A three-phased proposal created by the architects was presented to the congregation, which gave its approval to proceed. Phase one consisted of a large two-story “spline” that would connect the sanctuary with the Christian education building. (The word “spline” is a typically esoteric term that you won’t find, in this context, in most dictionaries and is known and used almost solely by architects and builders.) That structure, protected from the elements, would include the extension outward of the narthex porch, creating a gathering place that could be used for after-service coffee hours, meetings, and relatively small potluck luncheons or dinners. Beyond the enlarged porch area, the narrowed spline would curve toward the Christian education building, providing classroom space as well as weather-free movement between buildings. Phase one was estimated to cost over $2 million.
Phase two would be the construction of a large two-story fellowship hall. The third phase would include renovation of the Christian education building, expansion of the current administrative spaces now attached to the sanctuary, and additional site improvements. Total cost for all three phases was estimated to be over $6 million.
Despite approval by the congregation, a number of individuals disagreed with the proposal, both the design and especially the cost. Two knowledgeable and concerned men, Louis Genuario, a partner in a local construction company, and Vance Morrison put their heads together with the aim to see the plans’ approval reconsidered. Lou suggested a smaller, more affordable project that would place a fellowship hall next to and sharing a common wall with the badly deteriorated Christian education building, which would be fully renovated in the process. A covered walkway between the buildings would have to wait until sometime in the future. But other features, such as landscaping and parking lot improvements could be included. Note that neither Lou nor Vance was a member of the Project ’95 team at this point, but later would become very much involved in the building process.
To his credit, Vance wrote a letter to the Project ’95 committee, detailing Lou’s concepts and requested they be considered. He expressed their misgivings as to the design and the costs. So, in 1993, the committee asked Vance to join them and be an advocate for his views, which he did as a member of Ruth Guirard’s communications efforts for Project ’95.
In the same year, Project ’95 selected another architectural firm, the Kerns Group, to provide new comprehensive site plans encompassing the newly suggested ideas. Over the next two years, the project was, indeed, scaled back to an affordable size while retaining the essential elements chosen by the congregation in their earlier opinion survey. Also, consideration was given to estimates of the ultimate fundraising total as well as a maximum cost of a mortgage.
Another function of Project ’95 was to initiate in 1993 the first of a triad of three-year pledge/fundraising drives, which began with enthusiasm. Heartened by its success, the congregation gave another “go forward” to the project team. Unfortunately, a majority of that group was expected to move shortly from the area. Another crew would have to take over. Even the name of the project had little meaning now, for the early hope was that completion could be attained by late 1995. The delay, however, was fortuitous, because through 1994 Project ’95 had explored a number of options and other details and assembled a large body of information and recommendations that would be useful to a new team.
In a manner somewhat like osmosis, the form and personnel of a successor group began to emerge, a process that would encompass a year or more. Based largely upon a Project ‘95 proposal, the session on March 15, 1994 appointed a committee with three major units and the chair of each: a project management team – Howard Haynes, communications – Ruth Guirard, and financial management – David Baxa. Hugh McKinnon was designated to head what would be called a building steering committee composed of the three team leaders.
Other personnel would be added, some part-time as required, and some would leave the area. Eventually the final cadre would include Vance Morrison, steering committee chair; Jim Jacoby, project team chair; Hazel Anderson, communications head; Frank Doe, finances; plus Earl Flanagan, Lou Genuario, Bob Morrison, and Jean Smith.
More about these intrepid builders and their accomplishments in Chapter 2.
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A Quotable Quote
The Bridge Builder
An old man, going a lone highway,
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again must pass this way;
You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide –
Why build you the bridge at the eventide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pit-fall be,
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”
– Will Allen Dromgoole
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