Meet the Lolley Scholars

Meet the

Lolley Scholars

Providing support and scholarship assistance to students engaged in theological education is an important part of the work of CBFNC. Supported by an endowment fund established by CBFNC in 2008 to honor Randall and Lou Lolley, the Lolley Scholarships are our most comprehensive scholarships that provide perpetual funding of theological education for future ministers. Through individual and congregational gifts to the endowment fund, CBFNC is able to support four to five outstanding students for all three years of their M.Div. program. Please join us in congratulating the following 2020-2021 Lolley Scholarship recipients.

TANNER BROWN

Master of Divinity at Campbell University Divinity School First Baptist, New Bern, NC

LUKE PERRIN

Master of Divinity at Duke University Divinity School Jubilee Baptist, Chapel Hill, NC The goal of the Lolley Fund for Theological Education is to support men and women preparing for Christian ministry who are enrolled in seminaries or divinity schools and who have a commitment to serving in Baptist congregations and ministries. Candidates for the scholarships must be nominated by someone who can speak to her or his outstanding promise for Christian ministry and excellent potential for graduate-level work.

Consider making a gift to the Lolley Fund for Theological Education. Your generosity will create a legacy that will impact ministers and congregations for years to come.

SEAN TIMMONS

Master of Divinity at Duke University Divinity School

First Baptist, Huntersville, NC

ELIZABETH SWETT

Master of Divinity at Duke University Divinity School

First Baptist, Gainesville, GA

Visit cbfnc.org and click on the word “give” at the very top of the home page. On the donation form, look for “Where would you like to direct your gift?” Choose “Randall and Lou Lolley Endowment for Theological Education” from the menu of options.

EMBRACING NEIGHBORS By Meeting One of Their MOST BASIC NEEDS

by Anna Anderson |

CBF Field Personnel

FROM THE BEGINNING OF OUR introduction to

Rev. Richard Joyner, founding director of The Conetoe

Family Life Center and pastor of Conetoe Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, we have been interested and invested in the work he has begun there. What started as a friendship has grown to a partnership and a collaboration in ministry that continues to unfold and inspire us in ways we could not have dreamed possible eight years ago when we first met.

Conetoe is a tiny town in Edgecombe County in northeastern North Carolina— one of the most economically challenged areas of the state. It’s classified by the government as a “food desert,” which is a geographic area at least 10 miles from fresh food access and most commonly found in Black and Brown communities and low-income areas.

The Conetoe Family Life Center began as an agricultural project with a two-acre community garden. Growing fresh vegetables so that the people in this community could have better access to healthier, fresher food was one of the main goals of the Center. Today, students and the community come together to grow and distribute about 50,000 pounds of fresh produce from that garden each year.

Soon beekeeping and honey production came along; summer enrichment programs for youth in the community came along; after school help for children; literacy enrichment programs— all sorts of things targeted to the goals of healthier and more productive lifestyles for those who live in persistent, generational poverty.

The church was doing some things, the schools were doing some things, but Rev. Joyner always felt that there was more that could be done.

Because of food insecurity in communities like Conetoe, volunteers have often stepped up to help. Growing food takes so much: land, equipment, garden expertise, willing volunteers for all 12 months a year, and more. It’s a huge undertaking and one that Conetoe Family Life Center continues to adjust and tweak, all to bring about

more complete and efficient ways to get healthy food into people’s homes.

Today, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes are prepared with fresh vegetables and fruits from the 27-acre garden. These boxes are sold—some to area hospitals and restaurants and other organizations all to provide money back into the ministry of the garden. Vegetables are given away or sold very cheaply to local folks. Prior to COVID-19, sometimes, even a food trailer would be set up in the church parking lot on Sundays so that people could easily get fresh vegetables as they left church.

There are also a significant number of senior adults in this area living in poverty. For the past three years, we have helped administer a food program in Edgecombe County for low income senior adult families with food from the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.

Through a state application process, these folks receive a 50-pound box of non-perishable foods such as canned vegetables, grains, canned meats, protein such as peanut butter, canned fruits, long shelf-life milk, etc. And sometimes, fresh things can be added to the boxes as they are available from either the garden at Conetoe Family Life Center or the food bank.

This program means so much to low income families who are struggling. We have one participant who is 106 years old! There are 10 volunteers who take these boxes to people who cannot drive themselves or otherwise get to the site where the boxes are distributed each month. We have other volunteers who meet with us each month to help with loading boxes in cars, paperwork that needs completing for the food bank’s records, and many other needs that arise.

And we didn’t allow the COVID-19 pandemic to disrupt our efforts. For the past four months, we’ve had drive-through distribution so that the people who come don’t have to leave their cars. We are also using safety measures like wearing masks and practicing social distancing.

Whether CSA boxes or the food bank’s program boxes, we’re all working together to do the best we can in making sure these families have the food they need. Thanks to the generous gifts of so many CBF and CBFNC churches and individuals, we can provide this most basic need for our friends and neighbors.

Learn more about Conetoe Family Life Center by visiting the website: conetoelife.org.

Anna Anderson serves as CBF field personnel in northeastern North Carolina with Together for Hope, CBF’s rural development coalition, focusing on providing poverty relief.