When looming teacher strikes threatened the stability of her community, Corban alumna Jill Nelson (Steiner ’04) was ready to step into the gap.  

Nelson, the children’s pastor at The Grove Church in Albany, Oregon, had spent the past few years becoming slowly and more deeply connected with her community, her service now intertwining with nearly every aspect of her life. Feeling a calling toward the most impoverished in her community, Nelson decided it wasn’t enough just to serve. She bought a home and moved her family directly into that community, placing her children into a school many others told her to avoid. Soon she became president of the school’s PTA, and when the principal reached out to her about their need for teachers, she began substitute teaching in her spare time to help with the shortages.  

When the rumors of a teacher strike became a reality in November 2024, Nelson knew it was time to act, mobilizing her church to set up emergency childcare for affected families. “Our big concern was for the families who we knew would be more adversely impacted by the strike,” she says. “We knew many in our community couldn’t afford to pay for childcare or to take time off work.” 

She made a plan to provide that care, free of charge, starting small, unsure if they would even have any volunteers willing to step in. She levied her connection with the principal of her children’s school—a school with the highest number of students living in extreme poverty in the district—to petition the superintendent to recognize The Grove as an official community partner, similar to the Boys and Girls Club or the YMCA.  

This allowed them to advertise their new resource, become a district meal site, and recruit more volunteers from the community. “It was kind of like building the plane as we flew it,” she recalls.  

They began with ten children, needing two volunteers for every 10. The next day, they took 20. Then 30. As the strike continued, during their busiest day, Nelson and the volunteers at The Grove cared for 38 children who had nowhere else to go, free of charge. “At times it felt like we were the Israelites, and God was providing manna for us each day,” Nelson says.  

Every morning, she would walk into the church knowing she had just enough volunteers for the day. When 5:00 p.m. rolled around, as she planned for the following day, she would have just enough for tomorrow. “I remember God impressing on my heart not to be afraid to ask Him to surprise me,” says Nelson. “He did just that. We served far more than I ever thought we would be able to.”  

Volunteers were gathered from all walks of life—members of Jill’s church, bus drivers and instructional assistants from the district, members sent by other local churches in town, and many community members, some of whom had never set foot inside a church. “It became a space where people who would not normally feel comfortable in church came to volunteer,” Nelson says. “It was beautiful. God was working beyond what most people even realized. The credibility of our church with non-believers in town is something that we hold very dearly. Even though outreach was not our goal, I believe people were able to see the love of Jesus through the things we were doing together.”  

As the strike concluded, Jill returned to yet another role in her already busy schedule, that of president of Albany Student Advocacy Project (ASAP), a newly reconstructed nonprofit aiming to continue service to students in the community most affected by educational disparity due to the effects of poverty. Officially launched in January, ASAP has already begun setting up “resource closets” in local schools, equipping them to respond when a student has a practical need.  

“Our big hope for ASAP is that we will be able to see the lives and educational opportunities of students impacted by poverty in our district be improved,” says Nelson. “By providing additional resources, we can relieve a lot of the tension and the burden that is felt within a school by solving problems that can be solved easily. For so many of these kids, unless their physical needs are met first, they can’t fully focus on learning and growing.” 

Nelson and ASAP are actively looking to expand their funding and pool of volunteers, hoping to develop even more initiatives, making things like field trips possible for students, many of whom have never left the town of Albany. “We’re trying to help expand their worlds, allowing them to see new opportunities for themselves,” she says. “We need to bridge that gap and help them overcome what they need to overcome.” 

It’s a gap that Jill believes many in her community, and communities across the US, are still too willing to overlook. It’s a gap she has witnessed firsthand, having planted her life directly into the community she felt called to serve. “Whether it’s children’s ministry or emergency childcare, substitute teaching or ASAP or just caring about my kids’ friends—the ones they share life with every day—it’s all because God called me to love His creation and His people,” Nelson says. “He has been pushing me to walk deeper into that conviction with every step.”  

If you would like to learn more about Albany Student Advocacy Project and how you might be able to get more involved, visit: https://asapalbany.org/about/