Opening Doors to Thriving Children and Flourishing Neighborhoods

Every June, the doors of St. Mark’s UMC in San Antonio, Texas, swing open, and its hallways fill with something new: suitcases, nervous introductions, and the laughter of college students arriving for another summer. They may be nervous, but they know they’re here to serve children. “You hear this laughter, you hear this joy, you hear this excitement,” says Lillian Egera, the church’s longtime secretary.

Soon, these young adults will fan out across South Texas to spend their days with children, reading, playing, learning, and, most importantly, building relationships.

That is Project Transformation Rio Texas’s mission in motion. “Our mission is to build relationships between children, college students, and churches, for the transformation of communities,” says CEO Sharla Bell.

And that transformation begins with something deeply personal: being present for a child.

This life-changing work has taken root in a partnership between Project Transformation Rio Texas and St. Mark’s. St. Mark’s has been an anchor for its San Antonio neighborhood since 1954, continually finding ways to open its doors and be present in the surrounding community. In 2020, an affordable loan from Texas Methodist Foundation helped transform the church’s education building into a home for Project Transformation Rio Texas interns preparing to serve children throughout South Texas.

Literacy is Project Transformation Rio Texas’ work, and relationships are at its heart. Children work with young adults who listen to them, encourage them, read beside them, and simply show up for them. Egera has seen what that presence can mean. Her niece participated in the program years ago. “It was not just a reading program to her. It was a trusted relationship,” Egera says. “To this day, she still remembers those times.” And, ultimately, as intern Jordan Hampton puts it, learning to read with the consistent support of the interns “brings children closer to God.”

St. Mark’s is changed, too. “It’s livelier,” Egera says. “Things are happening here. The church has a real presence here.” And that presence is creating change, “the only way change is ever made,” Bell says. “One relationship, one person, one family, one church at a time.”

A church opens its doors to young adults. Young adults open their hearts to children. Children discover relationships of trust and encouragement. And those relationships ripple outward into flourishing families and neighborhoods.

For Project Transformation Rio Texas, an affordable loan from Texas Methodist Foundation helped open the space where those relationships could begin. Behind that loan are investors who generously choose to put their financial resources to work because they believe in the new thing God is doing.

Help Make Possible What’s Next 

If you feel called to invest with Texas Methodist Foundation to support ministries like this or want to explore how a loan from TMF could help you expand your ministry, we invite you to speak with our Chief Financial, Investment, and Lending Officer, email hidden; JavaScript is required.

Together, we can help open the door for what God is doing next.