As the summer holiday approaches, the Wallace Family Life Center staff would like to thank everyone who helped to make the 2008-2009 programs a huge success.  The Center kicked off its round of programs on Monday, September 8, 2008 with its After School Program.  During the After School Program teachers worked hard to assist Wallace Elementary Middle School students with homework, class projects and more.

                 That following Tuesday and Wednesday, the Center began its Arts & Crafts and Adult Education classes. Led Greg McCoy, program coordinator, community residents 18 and older were given a chance to come out mingle and take part of the weekly craft on Tuesdays from 10AM to noon. This year participants made a wide variety of crafts from pillows to customizes flowers pots and bird houses.

Adult Education offered residents 16 and older the opportunity to receive their GED or brush up on learning skills.  Afterwards, students were treated to a home cooked lunch prepared by WFLC staff.

In the winter, over 12 youth from the Bennettsville, Wallace and Cheraw areas were invited to become members of the WFLC Youth Council.  The purpose of the Youth Council is  help  youth learn leadership, community service, networking and other skills that will assist them in life.  They met monthly to host general meetings in which they organized community service projects, movie nights and discussed workshop and fundraising ideas.

“I feel like we had a great group of students on the Youth Council,” said Mr. McCoy.  “Seeing how smart and caring they all were was truly inspiring and motivating for me.”

Mr. McCoy, who also serves as Youth Advisor for the Council, assisted with the movie nights by loaning the Youth Council the usage of his 40 inch flat screen high definition television, Blue Ray player and even purchased the movies for them to watch as well as refreshments.

“Although, they pay dues to cover the cost of these kinds of activities, I felt like the least I could do was help them put that money to better usage and take care of everything for the movie nights,” said Mr. McCoy.  “Deserved it.  They have done so well with their community service projects and trying to recruit new members for the Council and activities.”

Other programs and ministries such as the Helping Hands Food Drive, Family Read Night and Sponsor-A-Child were also a success this year.  The Wallace Family Life Center staff is very much looking forward to making these programs even more successful for the upcoming 2009-2010 year beginning in August 2009.