High School/EYC Page

This website is devoted to the EYC and high school students of St.Thomas Episcopal Church in Huntsville, Alabama. EYC meets on Sunday evenings from 5:00 to 7:00, usually at the church, but you need to check the Epistle each week to see exactly what our plans are. We like to play games, go to Camp McDowell, participate in Special Session, go to Honduras, and participate in diocesan events, among other things! What follows are descriptions of some of our past adventures.

Invisible Children

St. Thomas Youth's main outreach project in 2008 has been to raise money and awareness for Invisible Children...Don't know what IC is? That's okay! Check out their website at www.invisiblechildren.com. 

The 30-Hour Famine

In April 2008, the St. Thomas Youth members participated in the 30-Hour Famine, sponsored by World Vision.  We built a cardboard village in the vacant field next to the church and slept outside while fasting for 30 hours.  We asked friends and family to sponsor us in our efforts to raise awareness and money for children around the world living in poverty and hunger.  We learned a lot about the horrors of hunger and raised money and awareness.  If you would like to know more about the project, check out the website at www.30hourfamine.org.

Here are some quick facts about hunger around the world:

• Each day, over 29,000 children die from preventable diseases such as malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and acute respiratory infections. Malnutrition is associated with over half of those deaths.
• In developing countries, one child in 10 dies before his fifth birthday. By comparison, in the U.S. one child in 165 will die before turning five years old.
• In the last 50 years, 400 million people worldwide have died from hunger and poor sanitation. That's three times the number of people killed in all wars fought in the entire 20th century.
• Malnutrition can severely affect a child's intellectual development. Children who have stunted growth due to malnutrition score significantly lower on math and language achievement tests than do well-nourished children.

 Domestic Hunger & Poverty

• 3.5 percent of U.S. households experience hunger. Some people in these households frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for a whole day. 9.6 million people, including 3 million children, live in these homes.
• 7.7 percent of U.S. households are at risk of hunger. Members of these households have lower quality diets or must resort to seeking emergency food because they cannot always afford the food they need. 26.6 million people - including 10.3 million children - live in these homes.
• Preschool and school-aged children who experience severe hunger have higher levels of chronic illness, anxiety and depression, and behavior problems than children with no hunger, according to a recent study.

Special Session!

Every summer, St.Thomas helps run a session at Camp McDowell for children and adults with physical and mental disabilities. We do arts & crafts, play games, canoe in Clear Creek, go hiking, and go swimming, just to name a few of our activities. The counselors who take care of the campers for the week are mostly high school students with kind hearts who love to work with people with disabilities.

Almost all of the St.Thomas EYC participates in Special Session. Many of them keep coming back to work even after they graduate and move on to college! This is a great ministry and we are proud to be a part of it!!