The White Oak Foundation’s new childcare center will be the recipient of 100% of the proceeds from the downtown businesses’ virtual “snowball fight” fundraising campaign which is part of the Town of Apex’s “Let It Snow” event in December.
The White Oak Foundation is located at 1624 White Oak Church Road in Apex. It was established 25 years ago under the auspices of the White Oak Baptist Missionary Church and is a recognized faith-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Its mission in simplest terms is to help those in need by offering a wide array of programs, expertise and support focused on the total person.
These include:
Food pantry
Daycare center for low/middle income families
Summer education enrichment programs
College scholarships
Health and wellness
Housing
Senior living
Crisis intervention (rent and utility assistance)
I spoke with the executive director, Reverend Charles R. Tyner, Sr., who arrived on the scene some 52 years ago to become the pastor at White Oak Baptist Missionary Church, a small unassuming church in rural Wake County originally established in 1867 by a congregation of families who sharecropped in the area. Tyner, originally from Murfreesboro, North Carolina, was a student at Shaw University on a religious studies track. As his passion to be in the church pulpit increased, he reached out to the local Baptist church headquarters and asked if there were any nearby churches that needed assistance. There were and for a while Tyner would visit and preach at a variety of churches in the area.
Eventually, though, he was told that his leadership was needed at a church in the rural countryside of Apex. He was 22 years old, eager for the opportunity, but without a car. That was no matter as they picked him up at the university on Sunday mornings and transported him to White Oak. It didn’t take long for Tyner to fall in love with the congregation and for the congregation to reciprocate.
“Can you help me build our ministry? I can’t grow the church in this building, so we are going to build a new church,” he told them.
It was 1972 and the cost to build a new church, according to a builder Tyner had secured out of Chapel Hill, was going to be around $100,000—money the congregation didn’t have. Tyner was brought up to believe that all things are possible if you work hard enough. With this in mind, he visited a bank in Raleigh, accompanied by one of his deacons. With church blueprints in hand, they sat down with a loan officer and shared their story.
“We need another church,” Tyner told the bank.
The loan officer said he could help but would need some commitments. Tyner recalled him saying, essentially, “If you bring me $10K, I’ll loan you the money.”
The deacon who accompanied Tyner to the bank had been a long-time employee of RDU, having worked in baggage. He implored the reverend to come with him to his home. There, the deacon opened his safe to reveal a substantial amount of savings accumulated over time and from the tips he made during his time at RDU. Tyner said they counted coins (a lot of coins) and dollar bills and some larger bills. It took a lot of time, but they counted out $10,000. “I was crying and counting at the same time,” Tyner remembered. Soon thereafter, they went back to the bank with the $10,000 down payment. The loan officer was flabbergasted. He drew up the paperwork; a new White Oak Baptist Church was on the horizon.
“If you bless me with this church, I’ll leave you better off than you were,” Tyner told the congregation.
For Tyner and the White Oak community, this was just the beginning, but this story of how he changed the church—literally—through faith, perseverance and collaboration, is worth noting as it seems to reflect how the White Oak Foundation and its community approaches everything they do.
Over time, he was able to purchase and develop much of the land around the church, slowly but surely expanding the community footprint. With more land came more possibilities—another lesson he learned early on from his father. As the White Oak ministry and community grew, so did their needs. Tyner noted that they weren’t shy about asking for help. And so, the early beginnings of the White Oak Foundation were born with an array of services and programs aimed at helping the White Oak community. Food, clothing and healthcare were made available to those in need.
“Take care of the least of them…” he quoted. I asked Tyner where this desire to help came from. “It’s from my family background. I had a very loving family. They loved to help others,” Tyner noted.
In terms of helping others, Tyner said that early on he wanted to be the pastor at a First Baptist Church in an established community. But, when he took over White Oak, he thought “maybe the Lord wants me to build up a community.” And that’s exactly what he’s been doing for the last 52 years.
“Nobody around here would ever have thought that we’d be as blessed as we are,” Tyner said, in closing. “I don’t know where this ministry is going, but it’s growing every day. Where there’s room for you, there’s hope for you.”
The White Oak Foundation can be reached at 919-362-6799 or you can learn more about them at https://wofnc.org/.
