West Virginia Wildlife from Eyewitness News

Centershot Ministries

A WVDNR program inspires local churches.

December 19, 2007
Reporter: Patrick McMurtry
Videographer: Brad Rice

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When the dnr began the national archery in the schools program in 2004, they knew that it would be a big success.

In three years - over 30,000 students from 140 schools have gone through the program.... What the dnr didn't realize was that churches in wv would be introducing their congregation to archery through a similar program called centershot ministries.

Kris Grimes/Center Shot Ministries says:
"Center Shot Ministries, the goal of that program is an interdenominational effort to reach kids for Christ using archery as a tool. We'd like to reach all the students. We do focus on the students that are unengaged, those are the types of kids we hope to get involved, but we welcome all the students."

Kris is the national director of center shot ministries. Charles larue is working with local churches to get them involved in this worthwhile program.

Charles Larue/WV Center Shot says:
"We were originally able to bring in people who didn't originally attend church. We opened up and we're going by the seat of our pants because the program was new. We discovered on a typical Wednesday night, we'd have 37 kids shooting, 60 parents in the gym and taht would be more people than we would have in a regular church service on Wednesday. We saw real quick that we were on to something."

Now larue is hoping to spread the word to other churches. That's why he's working over at teays valley christian school on a clinic to teach adults how to instruct kids in archery. Once he has that infrastructure of teachers in place, all he has to do is concentrate on getting the word out to churches.

Charles Larue/WV Center Shot says:
"Most of it is basically word of mouth. We contact those parents that are on our mailing list and take out advertisements in our local papers and get the word out the best we can.

If center shot works nearly as well as the dnr's archery in the schools program, thousands of kids will be introduced to a new sport that can last a lifetime. For west virginai wildlife, i'm patrick mcmurtry, eyewitness news.

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