Sheltered Reality: Meaning Through Music
CHHSM’s 74th Annual Meeting will end with a Saturday night dinner celebrating Diakonal Ministry and launching CHHSM’s 75th anniversary year. Bringing entertainment and special poignancy to the evening will be a group of choreographed drummers from Sheltered Reality, a widely-respected program that teaches personal empowerment and character building and encourages their application to its primary focus of advocacy for youth in crisis.
A group of 20 drummers selected from among Sheltered Reality’s 300 members will be performing. Included among them will be young people from Hoyleton Ministries, an historic CHHSM member ministry in Hoyleton, Ill., dedicated to children, youth and families. Founded in 1996 when Executive Director Steve Schlosser was a motivational education doctoral student at the University of Iowa, Sheltered Reality grew out of his desire to explore whether or not music could be used as a motivational tool through which audiences could be educated on problems that children and youth face and then be inspired to take action to help solve very real problems. By 2003, Sheltered Reality’s impact was being widely felt and the program received the Presidential Award for Best Youth Project Aimed at Ending Homelessness in America from the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.
The dinner program will also include a presentation about the year-long celebration of Diakonal Ministry underway in the Southern Illinois Conference UCC, recognition of retiring executives, a preview of CHHSM’s 75th anniversary year and an inspiring photographic benediction.
CHHSM’s closing night dinner promises to be an evening you won’t want to miss.
