Local organization completes service projects
Carolina Cross Connection (CCC) is a non-profit that seeks to connect churches with the community through camp experiences and service work. While located in Gastonia, CCC serves 14 counties, including Catawba. Since their inception 35 years ago, CCC has assisted Lincoln, Cleveland, and Gaston, but expanded to include Catawba, amongst others, around 20 years ago.
“We don’t necessarily want to grow wide, our goal is to grow deep,” shared Brittany Bethel, Executive Director of CC.
Bethel, who has served in ministry since college, has worked for CCC since 2006 as a summer staff person, assisting in community service projects. In 2012 when she moved back to North Carolina, she moved to a year-round administrative role, and became Executive Director in 2017.
When discussing the reason for her return to CCC after serving as a volunteer, Bethel stated, “CCC has always been about relationships,” which she expressed meant a lot to her in working in ministry.
CCC has several programs, with their main emphasis locally being the Home Repair program. This program serves to help individuals in the community with “safe access projects,” which assist them with being able to get in and out of their home safely. This includes repairs to porches and building wheelchair ramps.
Through relationships built with local churches, CCC provides a camp experience for 6th-12th graders, where during the course of a week, they get to complete various pre-planned home repair projects, while also participating in games, worship, and teaching during the evenings. Even though CCC is geared towards engaging youth in the service of the community, Bethel shared the crucial role her adult volunteers fill.
“Adults are vital because they’re leading the projects, driving out, and helping to wrangle their kids. We can’t do what we do without adults.”
They also work in Honduras, where they partner with a children’s home to complete minor projects with them to benefit relationships and education in the area.
Bethel discussed that not only are their church partnerships a vital aspect of the organization, but also how the Department of Social Services has been involved since 1988.
“DSS has been so important to us. They start calling us in March, because they are ready. They are really intentional about helping folks. They send us people who might need help, then we visit the person and see if it’s within our scope,” stated Bethel.
CCC has completed between 200-400 service projects each summer since the beginning. Bethel expressed that it is typically around 400 projects they complete each summer; however, the pandemic lowered the amount they could complete drastically in 2020 and 2021.
“COVID changed everything for us. We realized we couldn’t do ministry the same way. We also realized we had been doing stuff because we always did them, not because it was necessary,” said Bethel.
During the pandemic, they could not hold camp, but kept their summer staff of college students and completed as many projects as they could.
“It was a beautiful reckoning. It’s hard to be thankful for something like that, but we had time to ask the necessary questions to refocus. I’m thankful for the time,” shared Bethel.
Bethel discussed the impact of material cost increase during 2020 and 2021.
“Material costs went up 100%, but thankfully it’s gone back down. Surprisingly, we didn’t have trouble getting materials; it was just expensive. Lowe’s is very good to us.”
CCC will hold a benefit dinner on September 17th in Charlotte, and their annual golf tournament in March.
They also hold two big campaigns throughout the year: a matching gift campaign in the fall and “The One” campaign throughout the summer. Their goal is to raise $170,000 for their summer projects. 100% of donations go towards materials. Bethel shared that they do as much as possible to keep overhead down, including all staff working from home.
For more information regarding Carolina Cross Connection and their upcoming events, visit their website at https://www.carolinacrossconnection.org/.