United Ministries at Black Hills State University has continued to be a presence on campus during the 2010-2011 academic year. Our physical office, lending library and food pantry are located in the little green house directly east of the David B.
Biller Student Union. This house is owned by the BHSU Foundation and these quarters are shared by the Retired Senior Volunteers Program (RSVP) and by the
Volunteers In Service To America (VISTA) offices. Sharing quarters has been a blessing. Whenever the VISTA and RSVP offices are open students have access to the food pantry. Typically these offices are open Monday through Friday.
The United Ministries Board Members are as follow:
Michael Zehfus, Spearfish UCC, President
Scott Ahola, BHSU, Secretary
Roberta Engessor, St. Joseph’s Catholic, Spearfish, Treasurer
Everett Follette, Spearfish United Methodist Church
Ruth Nelson, All Angel’s Episcopal Church
Shirley Amen, Spearfish UCC
Holly Moseley, Acting Director, All Angels Episcopal Church
Jean Helmer, Acting Director
Director Holly Moseley has maintained a regular weekly presence on campus. Holly is the youth pastor at All Angels Episcopal Church in Spearfish. Her organizational talents and experience as a spiritual director have proven to be the glue that has held us together this year.
UM-BHSU offered programs on social justice and environmental issues through
Food For Thought, a brown bag luncheon series. The following presentations were held:
Dr. Ahrar Ahmad presented a seminar on “The Relationship Between Islam and Terrorism,” on October 5, 2010
Mark Anderson, Director of USGS South Dakota Water Center presented
“Water in the Black Hills” on November 2, 2010.
UM/BHSU teamed with the BHSU Career Center in presenting, “OMG, My
Boss Found My Facebook Page,” a seminar on social networking for professionals, on March 31, 2011.
For the ninth consecutive year, the Souper Study Session was provided each semester during “Hell Week,” the week preceding finals. The Souper Study
Sessions feature “church-lady” and “church-daddy” soups, vegetable trays, and fresh fruit to students, faculty and staff during this high stress time of the semesters. In December, 2010, student response was so great that the soups had been totally consumed within two hours. The spring session featured 5 additional crockpots of soup. Even though the spring session happened to fall on the single warm-weather, sunny day in two weeks, more than 100 were served. We were assisted in these two events by the Luther Club.
Our campus presence has been made possible by the continuing generosity of the
South Dakota Conference of the United Church of Christ and by the South Dakota
Presbyterian USA Conference. This on-going funding has quite literally paid the rent for our office space. We operate on a 100% volunteer basis, using residual funding from the SD United Methodist Church and area churches. Thank you for helping us be a presence and a blessing to the BHSU community.
Jean Helmer, Acting Director 76