History
Project Transformation was founded in 1998 by Sarah Wilke and Dr. Leighton K. Farrell, two leaders of the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. They recognized several challenges facing the conference at the time: the impending shortage of young leadership in the church, the need to connect churches together to help revitalize struggling urban congregations, and a way for United Methodist-related institutions to collaborate more effectively. Over lunch one day, they sketched out an idea on a napkin of how one program could address all of these challenges. Several months later, they launched Project Transformation with financial and in-kind support from the annual conference and key partners, such as Texas Methodist Foundation, Southern Methodist University, and Perkins School of Theology. Several Dallas-area churches, Sunday School classes, and United Methodist Women’s groups provided stipends for interns, children’s books and supplies, and volunteers to read one-on-one with the children.
The first summer began with 22 college interns serving at five urban site church locations, providing a summer day camp for 250 underserved children. Today, Project Transformation - Dallas is serving at nine site churches, with 100 college interns providing after-school and summer programs for approximately 1,000 children and youth, grades 1-12, annually. Project Transformation connects over 90 partner churches and 1,500 volunteers within the North Texas community to serve the organization. Project Transformation has also expanded through a strategic replication plan and now operates two additional chapters in Oklahoma and Tennessee.
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