Our student leadership team has been off to a busy start this semester! We began the year by inviting new students into our community with our classic event, S’mores with S’methodists! We shared delicious burgers and hot dogs made by former Leadership Team president and eternal Wesley “grillmaster” Grace Nelson ’23 and made yummy s’mores. It was one of the largest S’mores events we’ve participated both in student participation and in laughter. Additionally, we revived our Orientation Breakfast for Methodist freshmen for the first time since the pandemic. New board members Ryan Staggs and Sailor Miao provided a delicious breakfast, and we met many new students who were curious about us. We also had a great time meeting students at the Center for Student Diversity Block Party and had some deep and heartfelt conversations with new students who were looking for a community to be a part of during their college years. These conversations allowed us to extend the invitation to join our community to students outside of the Methodist and Christian faith. Wesley is – and has always been – a campus ministry for all students to come and nourish their moral and ethical centers.
This is why or theme this semester is “Patchwork of Community. Wesley is like a quilt. All our students come here with different abilities, interests, backgrounds, and perspectives, but when you bring us all together, we create something beautiful – a patchwork of community.
That’s our goal this semester: to bring students and other members of the community together to create something more beautiful. Our large groups this semester have been formed around this idea. Our Communications Chair, Emma, led a large group about bringing communities together to create literal patchworks and mosaics in her talk about Christian Craftivism. This talk has inspired us to think about ways we can advocate for justice in our world in beautiful, crafty ways. As part of this, we have decided to refurbish the Rudy Benesh Peace Garden and to include painted rocks that advocate for peace. We have invited other faith groups like Muslim Student Association, the Buddhist Sangha Meditation group, and Jewish Voice for Peace to take part and pain rocks as an interfaith prayer for peace. Stay tuned for something beautiful!
Our desire to bring beautiful parts of our community together has also led us to invite guest speakers to our large group. Our hope in doing this is to make our Sunday night program a more meaningful experience for more students. This past Sunday, we invited three LGBTQ+ clergy to join a panel where they talked about how their queer identities shaped their faith identity and vice versa. It was a truly incredible event that brough together lots of different members of our community, including members of Wesley, Williamsburg United Methodist Church, Williamsburg Baptist Church, UKirk, Catholic Campus Ministry, and the student body at large. It was such a popular event that we even had to grab more chairs for students to be able to join the conversation! We hope to continue this with our future large groups and we have lots of guests on deck. Next Sunday, Caroline Leibowitz ’24 M.P.P ’25 will give us a presentation on historic witchcraft tourism and its relationship to modern witchcraft practitioners. After fall break, Rev. Dr. Art Wright will be joining us once again for our second annual “Roast the Baptist,” where students can ask him anything about the Bible, its interpretations, translations, and history. We have also invited Ryan Eller of the Appalachia Funders Network to talk about healthy ways for our faith to inform our politics during a divisive election season. The intent of these large groups is to bring different people together to engage in spiritually meaningful conversation. We want our students to embrace the beautiful patchwork of our human community.
This goal has permeated beyond our Sunday nights. Fellowship events this semester, led by Emmie and Sadie, have provided space for students to laugh and have fun. New students have engaged deeply, bringing them closer to students who have been in the community for some time.
Our small group this semester is about the Pixar movies Inside Out and Inside Out 2, movies that embrace the complexities of being human. Helen has used these movies as a springboard to discuss how the things that make us different also make us beautiful and beloved in the eyes of God.
Lastly, our service projects this semester seek to extend Wesley’s impact beyond the walls of the Wesley House. Joslyn, our Service Chair, has been hard at work planning our Fall Break trip to Arlington, Virginia, where we will be working with Northern Virginia Family Services. Though this has kept her busy, Joslyn has also taken some time for other service initiatives. Last week, we held a bake sale for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention where we raised over $75. We are also continuing our work with Heritage Humane Society with an ongoing dog toy craft bin.
We’ve been hard at work embracing the diversity of our community in Wesley, on campus, and in the world – and providing opportunities for students to create justice, conversation, and joy.
Cheers,
Bennett Snyder and Annamarie Warnke
Student Leadership Team Co-Presidents
