VALDOSTA — The Community Foundation of South Georgia recently announced a grant of $50,000 to Valdosta State University's Fellowship of Christian Athletes ministry.
“We have a donor who wishes to remain anonymous that approached us about establishing a fund that would direct $50,000 to Fellowship of Christian Athletes for the chaplain position at VSU,” said David Carlton, President of the Community Foundation. “We contacted Hal McGregor, the area director for FCA and learned that the grant would meet a need that they had been praying about for some time.”
According to McGregor, they had been interviewing for the position but were walking by faith for the funds.
“When I came on board in 2003, FCA's representation in Lowndes County was really in transition. Currently we are on 22 high school and middle school campuses in eight counties throughout South Georgia, but this grant is specifically for the VSU chaplain,” said McGregor. “We knew that in order to have a direct impact on the VSU campus, we would need a full-time person to concentrate on the students and their needs at Valdosta State, but we lacked the funding.”
The board voted in February 2008 to consider and approve the position. The local FCA chapter reached out to Wes Yearly of the Auburn FCA chapter and asked about assisting with a mock up budget for the position. Yearly works in the training and development of new FCA Chaplains and assisted in determining a budget.
“The more we talked with Wes about it, the more we realized that it was not just a salary. The position needed to consider mileage reimbursement, phones, Internet, benefits, office space and the list continued to grow. When it was all said and done, we were looking at $60,000 per year,” said McGregor.
With charitable giving scaled back nationwide, the Lowndes County FCA board began to pray and accepted applications.
“We identified several potential candidates,” said McGregor. “Ultimately we had a peace about one applicant and offered Trea Brinson the position. He was referred by an FCA affiliate at UGA and he moved to Valdosta in March 2009 to serve the VSU campus.”
“We are genuinely excited about Trea's involvement with Valdosta State, and we think it will significantly move the FCA Ministry forward on our campus and within the athletic department,” said Herb Reinhart, athletic director for VSU. “We are blessed in that I am not aware of another Division II athletic program in the country that has a dedicated FCA chaplain. This is something that we are very proud of and I think it's going to be wonderful for our student athletes and for our athletic staff. We look forward with great anticipation as to where it will take us.”
The $50,000 grant is a seed grant and is intended to fund this position for one year.
“Beyond the first year it is up to Trea to generate donations to fund his position and address the needs of the student athletes of VSU,” said McGregor.
Anyone wishing to donate to FCA directly may contact Hal McGregor or Trea Brinson at (229) 245-1717. Those interested in donating anonymously through the Community Foundation of South Georgia should call Lisa Hitt or David Carlton at (229) 228-5088. Both organizations are qualified 501(c)(3) organizations and all gifts are tax deductible.
Local News
<img src="http://valdosta.sgaonline.com/headlines/noon.gif" /> FCA receives anonymous gift for a VSU chaplain
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