HOUSTON CHRONICLE ARCHIVES 

Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: MON 12/08/03
Section: A
Page: 19 MetFront
Edition: 3 STAR

Downtown children get place to play /
Ex-NFL star, church team up on project

By MIKE SNYDER
Staff

A preacher, a politician and a football star, joined by scores of their closest friends, joined ranks Sunday to show off a new park where children from the growing downtown residential community will soon be playing.

St. John's United Methodist Church, already an important social force in eastern downtown with a ministry for the homeless and an early childhood development center, has developed a small park on its campus that will be open to children who live downtown as well as to church members.

Funding for the landscaping and playground equipment was provided by Santana Dotson, who retired this year after a decade as a defensive tackle in the National Football League, and his wife, Monique Dotson. The park will be known as the Dotson Family Park.

Rudy Rasmus , the church's senior pastor, said the park will fill an important need as the ranks of families living downtown continue to swell.

"Their children will have a place to play right here in downtown Houston," Rasmus told a large and enthusiastic crowd of church members and well-wishers who gathered for a ceremonial ribbon-cutting.

Rasmus and his wife, Juanita Campbell Rasmus , assumed leadership of the church in 1992 when flight to the suburbs had reduced its official membership to nine people. By 1999 the membership had increased to 3 ,600, and the Rasmuses were serving more than 6,000 meals a month to the homeless.

Dotson said he joined the church in 1993. A product of Yates High School, Dotson said he always lived in Houston during the off-seasons. He spent most of his career with the Green Bay Packers and set a rookie record in 1992 by registering a sack in each of his first four games.

"This is a hands-on church," Dotson said, noting that poor congregants worship every week alongside wealthy ones. "It makes you very thankful."

Children living downtown need more opportunities for recreation, Dotson said, and the park will help to fill that need.

"There's not a lot of parks, not a lot of outdoor structures," he said.

Councilman Michael Berry said the park and the church's other social services are a good example of the power of private initiative.

"We do so much more in our private sector, especially our churches, than we do in government," Berry said.

 

St. John's Downtown    2019 Crawford    Houston, TX 77002    (713) 659-3237    (713) 659 2236 Fax