Caroline working the FCA annual bake sale outside of HMHS.
For a senior in high school, free time is minimal. Caroline Barker, a senior at Haddonfield Memorial High School, has remained committed to the things that come with senior year, activities, sports, and special senior events, yet she has been intentional about carving out a significant amount of time to serve others, specifically in her faith.
This past school year, Caroline served as the President of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) at HMHS. Every Wednesday afternoon, students gather during their lunch for Bible study. This enjoyable time together with peers encourages their faith. Caroline’s dedicated leadership was recently recognized by the association with the “FCA Leadership Award.”
In addition to her FCA service, Caroline mentors middle school students through Wyldlife, a local middle school ministry. Every week since September, Caroline has shown up for middle schoolers, not to check a box, but to build relationships, share her faith, and create a space where kids can laugh, have fun, feel heard, and hear about understanding the life-changing gift of choosing to follow Christ as a teenager.
Looking back on her faith journey, Caroline shared, “Being a part of Christ the King, going to WyldLife, and then YoungLife in high school helped me so much in developing not only my faith but also my moral compass. Being around strong leaders helped me immensely in becoming a leader for FCA at my school. The way they genuinely cared for me, and everyone around them inspired me to do the same for whoever I was leading. My family also played a huge role in my development of faith and leadership; attending church weekly – they’ve encouraged me to continue to dive deeper into my faith by asking questions, and they taught me how to be independent.”
This fall, Caroline will attend Sacred Heart University to study management and business, and continue running cross-country and track. She shared, “I’m looking forward to finding a Christian community on campus.”
Veronica Spilker is the Coordinator of Evangelization, contact Veronica for youth and young adult ministry.
If you have a middle schooler or high schooler who wants to grow in their faith, please reach out to Veronica Spilker at vspilker@ctkhaddonfield.org.