The CRM has said farewell to its first student Fellow, who graduated with the class of 2026 in May. We have all been encouraged by her reflections on the impact of the Fellowship on her view of ministry and community as she transitions from college back to her rural hometown and church.
Emily Fox graduated with a degree in English and a minor in Digital Marketing and Professional Writing. She first connected with the CRM as an intern in her junior year, implementing her writing and digital marketing skills to serve the Center on their blog and social media. When the CRM decided to expand the internship program into the fellowship program and bring on three more students to the team, Emily focused more exclusively on writing, while also serving in large and small ways to develop the role of a CRM fellow and help the new fellows onboard.
Lessons Learned and a Surprising Move
Now Emily has headed back to her hometown and home church - Christ Presbyterian Church in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania. She is eager to invest what she has learned back in her hometown – a surprising mindset shift from what she expected when she first headed to college.
“I thought when I went to college, I needed to get the best education that I possibly could, and I needed to get a big job and move away,” she explained. “I also was just struggling with not feeling like I fit in my community…I felt very isolated, so I just wanted to get away…When I went to college, I went there with the mentality that this was the next step to move on and bury the past.”
But Grove City was an opportunity to step back and reflect on the blessings that accompany the challenges of rural life. “Throughout college, that perspective shifted, and the CRM was a big part of that because I was getting to see that yes, there is a lot of hurt that happens in small towns, there's a lot of difficulty…but there's still a lot of good happening in rural communities. Rural communities are hurting and need people who will pour into them and will bring that light of Christ to places that are overlooked. And I was seeing that through the stories that I was writing for the CRM.”
Now, back at the church where she grew up and found faith, she is stepping into a diversity of service and ministry roles. She has always sung at her church, but she recently was able to sing at the retirement service of the pastor who has been at the church her whole life – a very “full circle moment,” she reminisced. She has volunteered to teach 3rd-5th grade Sunday School and run the church’s newsletter – positions that Grove City prepared her for over the past four years.
“These are opportunities for me to use the education that God has provided for me to give back to the place where I found my faith, so that’s really an impactful experience. And I just get to learn a lot more about my church too, the people who built it and who sustain it now,” she explained.
As she looks to the future, she is thankful for the time at Grove City College and the CRM to prepare her for the unique challenges and joys of rural ministry. “I felt kind of like an imposter when I first started working for the CRM because I was telling these stories about small town communities and advocating for staying in small towns, and meanwhile, I just wanted to leave. But as I worked with the CRM, I returned to that love that I had for my community growing up, that I had exhausted in high school…I grew during college with all the people who were pouring into me, and with the CRM pouring into me as well. I can say that I feel content at home right now, and that was never something I thought I was going to feel when I first went to college.”
Anastasia Brown is a senior English Secondary Education major at Grove City College. She also serves as writing fellow for the Center for Rural Ministry.
