12:29PM
Isaacs Award Goes to Carol Folkes-Youen
The Massachusetts Chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians will host its annual Absalom Jones service on Sunday, February 8 at 4 p.m. at St. Bartholomew's Church in Cambridge. We're all invited to gather as a diocese and give thanks for Rev. Jones, our church's first black ordained priest, whose witness and struggle to create an equal place at God's table for all God's people changed our church forever.
This year, St. James's is proud to designate Vestry member Carol Folkes-Youen to receive the UBE's Frederick Douglass Isaacs Jr. Parish Lay Leadership Award of Merit for Outstanding Achievement. Carol, who will be honored in the Absalom Jones service along with others from all around the diocese, arrived in Massachusetts in 1968, a lifelong Anglican from Manchester, Jamaica who then devoted herself for almost four decades to serving those with special needs in the Commonwealth, working her way up through the ranks to management before she retired in 2002. Carol describes herself as a "back-door person," the kind of quiet, steady do-er who keeps a congregation going without drawing attention to herself. She has been a St. James's member since the 70's, serving in many capacities, including on the Hospitality Group, in the Choir, and now on the Vestry. She also served in the Nursery, and she remembers Sam Abbott reminding all those whose children once benefited from nursery care that when their own children were grown, it was time for them to volunteer in the nursery and give back to other children what the congregation had given theirs!
In receiving the Isaacs Award, Carol is following in the footsteps of her daughter Jennifer, who was designated by the Rev. Christopher Leighton as St. James's first recipient of the award for her own work in the Nursery.
This year, St. James's is proud to designate Vestry member Carol Folkes-Youen to receive the UBE's Frederick Douglass Isaacs Jr. Parish Lay Leadership Award of Merit for Outstanding Achievement. Carol, who will be honored in the Absalom Jones service along with others from all around the diocese, arrived in Massachusetts in 1968, a lifelong Anglican from Manchester, Jamaica who then devoted herself for almost four decades to serving those with special needs in the Commonwealth, working her way up through the ranks to management before she retired in 2002. Carol describes herself as a "back-door person," the kind of quiet, steady do-er who keeps a congregation going without drawing attention to herself. She has been a St. James's member since the 70's, serving in many capacities, including on the Hospitality Group, in the Choir, and now on the Vestry. She also served in the Nursery, and she remembers Sam Abbott reminding all those whose children once benefited from nursery care that when their own children were grown, it was time for them to volunteer in the nursery and give back to other children what the congregation had given theirs!
In receiving the Isaacs Award, Carol is following in the footsteps of her daughter Jennifer, who was designated by the Rev. Christopher Leighton as St. James's first recipient of the award for her own work in the Nursery.
January 24, 2009
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