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Archive > Gentry
Gentry
takes home Peacemaker Award
Gunnison Congregational UCC leader responsible
for leadership of
Mini Food Court Program among numerous other accomplishments
The winner of the Peacemaker Award at
this year’s Annual Meeting in Colorado Springs was Martha Gentry
of Gunnison.
She was one of three women responsible for the congregation being Open
and Affirming from the outset. Most recently, (March 24-25, 2007) she
provided leadership for a collective of college, church and civic agencies
to put on the “Out and About” conference, an educational
awareness, seeking and promoting understanding and security for the GLTB
communities in our valley. Without her innumerable contacts, superb leadership,
planning, and constancy of purpose these events would not have happened.
Five workshops attended by 70 individuals also resulted in two front
page articles in the local paper detailing the challenges of being gay
and being “out”. These articles raised consciousness and
prompted thoughtful discussions despite the controversial topic.
In her four year tenure as chair of the Social Justice Ministry, she
has gathered a team including members from the Episcopal and Unitarian
Universalist churches in an ecumenical spirit which has produced a series
of successful programs. The Restorative Justice Program has made a significant
difference to youth offenders and victims of crimes by offering an alternative
path to the usual criminal justice system. Well received and funded by
the larger community, it has become an independent non-profit which increased
its services and the numbers served. Restorative Justice provides peacemaking
for all kinds of disputes which do not belong in the courts. They recruit,
train and employ many volunteers, equipping them for dispute resolution.
Martha Gentry’s leadership of the Mini Food Court Program (supported
with grants
from the RMC and national programs) ensured its success.
Our high school has no kitchen or no cafeteria. Therefore, those students
who qualify for free lunch were not served nor was there a communal meal
time for socializing. Instead, many students
left the grounds in their
cliques. Our peacemaker brought together a consortium of school officials,
private citizens and church members to provide lunches for students.
She received grants to expand services. She lobbied restaurants to deliver,
and volunteers to serve the food. the program now serves lunch four days
a week and
the school community enthusiastically endorses the program
for community building,
not only among students but also among the adults
who share lunch times. Financial contributions from Rotary, other churches
and public sources have increased the numbers of meals. As of November,
2006, an average of 82 students per lunch
for 15 lunch periods including
230 meals for students eligible for free lunches were being served.
Besides her leadership at Gunnison Congregational UCC, Martha was instrumental
in the vision and implementation of day care services (Tenderfoot Day
Care) This service is for families of all incomes and is adjacent to
Western State College. Not technically a lab school the facility serves
many faculty and provides employment and training for students.
Martha’s great talent is for connecting the right people to make
a project go from idea to realization. She is a bridge across divides
of age, economic circumstance, educational background, race and ethnic
affiliation.
Before arriving in Gunnison, Martha served two terms on the national
board for the YWCA, providing programs for girls and women, especially
the marginalized or disadvantaged. As director of a St. Louis area Y,
in an impoverished African American community, she was one of only a
few white folks welcomed into the black community to work together of
social justice and peace. She was a founder of a Disciples of Christ
Mother to Mother program, connecting mothers from affluent white communities
with impoverished inner city moms. The program provided resources social
and educational opportunities, mutual understanding and friendship for
all and was later successfully duplicated in Lexington, Kentucky in the
mid 1970’s.
Martha earned her PhD in St. Louis and has been a professor who taught
courses such as “Social Action And Advocacy”. She co-authored
a text on the same topic. She has been well known as the advisor and
confidant to students facing various sorts of discrimination. During
the late 1970’s and 1980’s she taught graduate social work
courses in the first-ever Off Campus Master’s program designed
at the University of Kentucky. Offered primarily at Hazard KY in the
Appalachian region and later in Covington KY, they were specifically
designed for fully employed social works not able to leave work and come
to campus. Most students were disadvantaged but highly motivated to improve
their work in Appalachia. She taught in Hazard during one of the worst
floods of the Kentucky River and had just taught social work practice
principles and strategies in natural and man made disasters when the
flood struck. The teaching was challenging in part because of the weekend
travel and classes but also because she had to be accepted by the students
as a person who acknowledged and accepted the regional culture. She still
communicates with some of these former students.
Since retirement, she initiated the western slope location of The Theological
Education Institute providing alternative training for ministry, “equipping
the saints” for ministry in local churches.
Well beyond the age where many of us honorably retire she has persisted
in her peacemaking ministry. Her faithfulness to the “do justice,
love kindness and walk humbly with God” has been a model for youth
and adults alike. She doesn’t complicate, she does not equivocate,
she does not placate, she never complains--she just gets to it and gets
it done ..for the past six decades.
Gentry was Nominated by the Gunnison Congregational Church and the UCC
Executive Committee of the Steering Committee by Interim Minister, Rev.
Virginia A. Taylor.
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