Help celebrate 100 years of CGIT with the Ruth Tillman Youth Intern Fund

CGIT 100 years logo, used with permission
CGIT 100 years logo, used with permission

CGIT… the name evokes a mosaic of memories: friendships, music, laughter, and learning—all centred on the memorable 4-fold purpose.

Cherish Health, Seek Truth, Know God, Serve Others. 

CGIT’ers had a deep sense of belonging to one another, to the Church and to the World.

Ruth Tillman, CGIT’s national secretary (1962-69), said:

“The CGIT movement has contributed greatly to Canadian life, to the Canadian churches and to the liberation of Canadian women!” (Sixty Years of CGIT 1915-75, National CGIT Committee, Toronto).

2015 – The 100th Anniversary of CGIT.  All over Canada people are celebrating 100 years of strong memories, leadership development, and faith formation—and looking forward to a future of youth ministry that has already taken new and diverse forms.

From 1946 to 1970, CGIT was under the direction of the Canadian Council of Churches (CCC), with the support of the Baptist, Presbyterian and United Churches.

Hence – the Ruth Tillman Youth Intern Fund is being set up under the sponsorship of the Canadian Council of Churches (see below for further information on Ruth) to enable the CCC to hire a youth intern. The focus of this year and a half long internship will be on engaging youth in ecumenical education and activities in Canada.

CGIT members gather for a tea party photo-op
Photo: Alberta Northwest Conference (District), United Church of Canada

We invite you to celebrate the past, honour the present, and move forward with hope to the future. Help fund the Ruth Tillman Youth Intern Fund by contributing a loonie for each year of CGIT’s influential existence.  Our goal is for 100 people to contribute $100 each, for a minimum of $10,000.  We also encourage those holding 100th Anniversary celebrations to direct their received offerings for this purpose.

Your donations will ensure ecumenical youth formation work—in the spirit of the inter-church values of CGIT—continues.  Your donation will fuel the ongoing education, engagement, and empowerment of youth under 30 in Canada’s unique expression of ecumenism. You will be building the future!

Please make your cheque payable to the Canadian Council of Churches (with a note designating the cheque to the Ruth Tillman Youth Intern Fund) and mail to:

The Canadian Council of Churches

47 Queen’s Park Crescent East

Toronto, ON M5S 2C3.

Or donate online here (Scroll down and select Ruth Tillman Youth Intern Fund). Charitable receipts will be issued for amounts $20 and over.

You can also follow the work and witness of the CCC on our website, or through Facebook and Twitter.  For those hosting 100th Anniversary celebrations, we can provide envelopes for donations to the Fund upon request.

We thank you with deep gratitude and respect for the numerous ways you continue to contribute to the CGIT’s ever relevant purpose: Cherish Health, Seek Truth, Know God, Serve Others.

In thanksgiving,

The Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton (a former Explorer!)
General Secretary
Canadian Council of Churches

Ruth Tillman (1913 – 1978) graduated from The United Church Training School, Toronto (now Centre for Christian Studies, Winnipeg) in 1947.  She was commissioned by the Women’s Missionary Society (WMS) and was posted to Stella Mission, Winnipeg. After one year Ruth moved to become the WMS worker in Bonavista Presbytery, NL and, later, Girls’ Work Secretary for the NL Conference.

She was a CGIT enthusiast to the core, travelling the province training leaders in local groups (together with Nancy Edwards) and recruiting & training leaders for camp (girls & boys camps; CGIT camps; Camp Council).

Ruth left the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1962 to become National CGIT Secretary at the Canadian Council of Churches and in 1969 became Assistant Secretary of The Canadian Council of Churches, working with the Rev. Floyd Honey, General Secretary, a position she held until her retirement. While living in Toronto, Ruth was a member of Metropolitan United Church.

Ruth was a woman of passion and compassion—with the physical, intellectual, spiritual, and social development of young women and all people her highest priorities. Her concern was local; her perspective was ecumenical and global.  She was a mentor to many, and her death in 1978 was both a time of mourning and a time of celebration of her exemplary life.

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