Lake Wylie churches plan holiday efforts

From staff reports

LAKE WYLIE -- Editor's note: The York County Roundup is a weekly look at highlights from The Herald's sister weekly newspapers, the Lake Wylie Pilot, Fort Mill Times and Enquirer-Herald. The publications come out Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, respectively, and are available across the county.

Lake Wylie churches

plan holiday efforts

Among the many spiritual gifts listed in the Bible, most translations stop long before they get to basting a turkey. Just don't tell Pine Grove Baptist Church.

After years of a traditional Thanksgiving celebration at the church, members decided on something different this year — a free community Thanksgiving meal with no reservations required.

“I challenged our church that this year if things were still going bad, I wanted our church to bring their Thanksgiving together on Thanksgiving Day and that we would serve the community,” said the Rev. Jerry Bryant. “We're trying to follow Christ's example.”

About 20 people have volunteered to do the cooking.

Also firing up their ovens this holiday season are the folks at River Hills Community Church, which is hosting a Dec. 5 cookie walk to help buy toys for families through Clover Area Assistance Center.

“This is going to be a big deal, and we need a lot of cookies so we can help children have a Christmas,” said Maureen Schwartz, organizer of the Christmas Cookie Walk. The walk will include an expected 8,000 cookies, along with cakes, pies and other baked goods.

The Thanksgiving meal will be served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 26 at Pine Grove Baptist, 5415 S.C. 557. Anyone is welcome to attend; advance notice is not required. For details, call 803-831-2015.

River Hills Community Church will hold its Christmas cookie walk from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 5 at the church, 104 Hamilton's Ferry Road. Proceeds benefit the Clover Area Assistance Center.

Lake Wylie Pilot, www.lakewyliepilot.com

Clover students create

living wax museum

The hard part for most of Bethel Elementary School's fourth-grade students was standing still.

Inside the school cafeteria, every fourth-grader in the school stood or sat nearly motionless in costume portraying a famous American. The students were engaged in an annual wax museum project.

“We integrate this with language arts and social studies,” said Brenda Gess, a fourth-grade teacher.

The project takes about six weeks, she said. The students check out a biography of a famous American at the library and spend the next month and a half composing a written and oral report and piecing together a costume for the living wax museum.

Last week, other classes at Bethel filed through the cafeteria to see the fourth-graders in character. Later, the students took positions on the tables for their parents during Parents Night at the school.

“We've done it for a number of years,” Gess said. “It hits quite a few state standards for social studies and language arts. And the children love it.”

On display were American heroes ranging from Founding Fathers Ben Franklin and George Washington, to Betsy Ross, credited with creating the first American Flag, to the Wright brothers, Harry Houdini, Annie Oakley, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Sitting Bull, Sally Ride, Brett Favre, Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm and dozens of others.

Enquirer-Herald, www.enquirerherald.com