From Oregon-Four summers ago, on her first day as an administrator at Roosevelt High School here, Charlene Williams heard that the Christians were coming. Some members of an evangelical church were supposed to be painting hallways, repairing bleachers, that sort of thing. The prospect of such help, in the fervently liberal and secular microclimate of Portland, did not exactly fill her with joy.
“I was perplexed,” Ms. Williams, who was promoted to building principal in 2010, recently recalled. “What was their agenda? Were they trying to proselytize? Were they some kind of far-out group that takes advantage of people? Were they hard-core people trying to show the love of Jesus and nothing else?”
On a Saturday morning last month, when the latest wave of Christian volunteers descended upon Roosevelt, a public school serving a mostly low-income, nonwhite student body, Ms. Williams greeted many with hugs. They had come by the hundreds for an annual Day of Service — weeding, planting, varnishing, washing, even nailing together picnic tables. The air sounded of motors and smelled of mulch.
This invasion of the righteous was not a one-day sop to conscience. Throughout the school year, members of SouthLake Church in the prosperous suburb of West Linn serve as tutors at Roosevelt. A former N.F.L. quarterback in the congregation, Neil Lomax, helps coach the football team. SouthLake pays for another member, Heather Huggitt, 26, to work full time at Roosevelt helping to meet the material needs of students who often lack sufficient food, clothing and school supplies.
More here-
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/10/us/help-from-evangelicals-without-the-evangelizing.html?hp&_r=0
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