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Jim and Martha Brooks Scholarship Fund
This Fund is the product of a few Houston families interested in providing financial assistance to Impact high school graduates wanting to attend college. Paul Woodard, one of the ministers at Impact who has a close and personal relationship with the Impact teenagers, is the ideal choice to manage the operation. He does a magnificent job of keeping the students focused on their goals and stretching every dollar to cover our commitment. The fall semester of 2005 was the first effort of the Fund to provide financial support for four Impact teenage girls. In June of 2009, three of those girls graduated and the fourth is due to finish in the fall of 2010. All are first generation college graduates and each majored in education. The three graduates are now teaching. During those four years, 25 students were helped by this Fund. At the beginning of the 2009 fall semester, 17 students were helped. It is common knowledge that a college education is expensive. The Fund is small financially and cannot sustain the level of support currently needed. The Foundation has agreed to help. With the combined strength of the Fund and Foundation, these young people and the many yet to come, will receive a college education and the opportunity to break the chains of poverty.
Summer Program
During the summer of 2009, 278 elementary school age children were involved in a 6-week long Vacation Bible School, 4 days a week. Three days out of each week, every child went to a 75 minute long reading class. There were 21 reading classes taught by 40 different teachers. Three hundred forty-nine elementary and middle school children received $75.00 worth of school supplies including clothing. Twenty-two youth groups from 6 different states came to work with the 278 children. All of them went on 12 different field trips, spent 6 weeks learning 6 different Christian virtues, and ate 6,672 lunches.
Distribution Center
"I was hungry and you gave me something to eat."
Matthew 25:35
David Beegle, Director
The Impact Church of Christ established a formal distribution program in the summer of 1989. It was staffed by a number of volunteers, many of which are still involved in some way or another with the work at Impact. The volunteers lacked any real knowledge of how to organize the work but all believed strongly in the idea and were willing to learn in the “trenches”. This method proved advantageous because it helped the workers quickly assess and solve problems. And the Distribution Center, DC, is growing rapidly as the news of the presence of free clothing and food spread rapidly in the area around Washington Street.
Food and clothing donations from area churches of Christ as well as donations from various supermarkets and other organizations provided the needed items and with much excitement - a new ministry began! In time, a permanent facility was built to house this ministry and the program took on a more organized appearance. Computer records of recipients, registration cards and rotating volunteers have helped to make the DC an efficient ministry.
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