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A group that seeks to mentor students in the intermediate grades in the Williamsport Area School District had its beginning when Pastor Dale Rintelman, of Agape Fellowship, was enrolled in a course with the Mennonite Lancaster Conference.
In the third year of the course participants are encouraged to have a missional experiment.
"The whole year is about planning how to meet the community where they need it. And I was just really drawn by my past experiences," Rintelman said.
Some of those experiences went back to when he was a youth pastor in West Virginia in the early 1980's.
I just felt a real need to find if we could have a mentor organization that was really about trying to set up an organization that wasn't about programs, but it really was about being a safe place where kids, as they were young adults, could connect with, feel safe, get advice," he said.
"My goal in the future is to come alongside them so they can get jobs and help with that, but we haven't gotten that far with it. So that's really where the Williamsport Vision Team started," he said.
Rintelman began by connecting with some of the African-American leaders in the community, such as Reggie Fatherly, Pastor Ron Johnson and Voncier Gammage, to create a team to work with the youth. He also contacted the Williamsport School District to see if there was an interest in having an after-school program.
"We connected with Junior Achievement, and they provided us materials so that we didn't have to develop materials. Basically we connect with the kids and try to do something practical. At this point in time, that's what is called our Project Future," he explained.
"We do our construction world build, and what we do with that is we use something called Rockenbach, and then we have the kids learn how it works, and then they have to put together what is called construction world," he said.
During the third week, they do two challenges. One is a time challenge and the other is taking balls over to a conveyor for points. The winner gets a certificate.
"It builds teamwork, learning how to work together, and the kids really enjoy that. Usually after that, we kind of do a summary where we tell them, well, if this was something that you actually sold, or you were an entrepreneur, how would you put together costs? So we do a cost analysis with that," he said.
In the spring they do a Project Future using the Junior Achievement curriculum called "More Than Money."
"More Than Money" talks about having a business, and they specifically highlight a baking business. So what we do is we talk about the cost for making cookies, and we come alongside them, and they calculate the cost. They look through the ingredients, and then the second to last week, they actually do the mixing, work together, and make a batch, double batch of cookies, and the next week we get to eat them. It depends on how that looks," he said.
"One time we had to skip a week, so I said these are not the cookies that you make, but it is the replicate," he said.
The Vision Team meets at both Curtin and Lycoming Valley schools, so the youth are either in fifth or sixth grade and are selected by the principals at the schools to participate.
"They're not exceptional students, but I think that the principals see something in them," he said.
"They're kind of excited about it, and they're kind of all at the same level, but with that, we want to connect to the parents, and that's really how we develop the list that now we're working with with Project Community," Rintelman said.
With their Project Community, the youth knock on doors and ask community members if they need help doing yard work. This could be mowing grass, trimming brush, raking leaves or just general yard cleanup. The next work day is scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday.
For this project, Rintelman said they have connected with parents of the youth past and present and invited them to join in the Project Community.
Unfortunately, Rintelman shared that it has been a bit of a challenge finding homes where the Project Community crew can work.
"It is hard to get people who are willing to have strangers come into the yard, so even with this Project Community this Saturday, I've been out knocking on doors, handing out flyers, and we only have one house right now, so we may be walking around Brandon Park and other places picking up trash," he said.
"I don't know. So we connect to the parents, and we try to develop a relationship with the parents so that they know that we're interested in their child all the way until they graduate, and then we have a support system for them if they have needs and want to connect," he added.
There is no charge to the property owner for the work that the Project Community crew does, but the youth can earn a gift card for working the full two hours. They can also invite friends or family members over 18 to help. But, Rintelman said, it is really about developing community.
The first time they did the Project Community, they had handpicked people who needed work done in their yards. This time, Rintelman said, they had wanted to reach out to others.
"There's two ideas. Number one is, and quite honestly, like with all the kids that participate in Project Community, we just thank them. The leaders thanked them for coming out. The people thanked them. We just said thank you so much. And their response was well, why wouldn't anybody want to do this to help people in our community, and so they come up with that motive and goal, and I do think that it really helped them with connecting with the community," he said. "But the other side of it is, we want to develop their ability to be able to mentor. So when we talk about jobs, we're not just trying to get a job done. We're talking about okay, this is a person who needs help. What are the things you see? So we talk to them about what they see in their yard. We talk to them about what are some of the limitations that they said? These are things that are going to be the things we can't do. These are things we shouldn't do, and then we talk afterwards. We talk about okay, how could this person use help. Like if you were having a conversation with them, how do you? What are the things you actually see now after you've been working on their yard that they might need help with? And just kind of talking about looking at things from the perspective of somebody else rather than just yourself," he said.
For Rintelman, the Vision Team is not only about creating relationships across generations, but also about challenging stereotypes people have about the youth in the community.
"Youth have problems, but every generation has their own problems. The truth is that the kids do look for nurturing relationships that they can trust, and they're not scared of helping. So giving them an opportunity to help really does, I think, it really encourages our youth. And every kid we've ever been involved in they have their idiosyncrasies, but I do perceive that we our youth aren't all bad apples. There's a lot of good kids that can help their own generation to be a positive influence for our community," he said.
Anyone needing yard work done Saturday can contact the vision team online at: https://williamsportvision.org/what-we-do or by texting; 272-4661718.