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Killingsworth continues mission, ministry to South Carolina's many women in crisis
By: Rachel Haynie
Advocate Staff Writer
LEXINGTON, S. C. - One hundred or more paddles dipped in the Saluda River one recent Saturday extended the ripple effects Killingsworth has been making since 1972.
The paddling event, a new fundraiser for the transitional home for women in crisis, brought in a few new dollars.
More importantly, it also garnered some new friends for the ministry, said Killingsworth Executive Director the Rev. Dine Moseley.
"Many of the paddlers that registered heard about the event through their districts and churches, but others just responded to the opportunity to paddle, knowing little or nothing about our mission and purpose."
Moseley said Killingsworth's annual holiday gala and the women pins, both fundraisers and both valued ways the ministry wins friends and influences people, have been coupled with a summer golf tournament as ways of keeping the cause before the constituents.
The paddling event has added another means of spreading the word.
With yeoman's help from Jay Alley and his staff at Canoeing for Kids, the inaugural paddling event enabled families and church groups - from youth to seniors - a couple of hours of exhilaration in the rain-accelerated currents of the Saluda River.
A few paddlers brought their own crafts and others chose between inflatable rafts and sit-on-top kayaks.
When the swift currents brought them from their put-in point to the narrow bank at Canoeing for Kids' headquarters, a picnic lunch had been spread on a checkered tablecloth for their enjoyment.
The paddling event seems, at first glance, an unlikely undertaking for a ministry whose mission is nurturing women through to the independent side of life's crises.
But the parallels are ironic: for more than three decades, Killingsworth has been the paddle these up-the-creek women have needed.
Over those years the ministry's mission has ebbed and flowed with societal waves.
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Social issues that appeared out of the shadows only occasionally in the early 1970s have taken full hold in this new millennium, and Moseley does not see them disappearing
The strength of the ministry's effectiveness is in helping women get or regain the strength they need to be self-reliant.
In turn, the strength the women bring to the Victorian home in Columbia's University neighborhood is their survival strategies
Moseley said the ministry sees these women as individuals who have faced down very difficult obstacles, not as victims.
In the early years of the ministry, the resident population was young.
The demographics have spread now to include a broader age span, multiple ethnic backgrounds and varied reasons for seeking refuge at Killingsworth.
With a strong working board of directors and creative solutions to managing on a less-than-certain budget, Killingsworth continues its mission of helping women become empowered and independent through a deep-rooted belief in the remarkable courage, strength and ability of its evolving family of residents.
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