Karson Byerly & Anne Marie Bell
palmettoreport@gmail.com

(Rock Hill, S.C.) – Winthrop University now has a student organization that is intended to bring young women together to a ministry that focuses on creating a Christian community that grows, serves and learns together.

Winthrop has many religious organizations, but the group Delight Ministries is one of a few that focuses on reaching women. The organization became solely student run during the fall 2024 semester.

“I really thought it would be a good idea to create something where women could come together and really get to know each other on a deeper level based on the Christian values,” said Maddie Spenner, the student leader of the group.

“We felt that there was kind of a gap on campus. We have a lot of great big campus ministries, we have sororities, but we don’t really have anything in the middle for girls to just kind of gather,” she said.

Spenner said she saw a need for a tight knit community and took inspiration from other college campuses using the Delight curriculum, established for college women seeking Christian community.

“I had heard about Delight at some other schools in Georgia, UGA and Augusta, and I had friends who were a part of them, who had gotten really involved and gotten a lot out of it,” Spenner said.

Delight was started in 2012 at Belmont University by two women who were struggling to find a Christian community. The ministry now has over 200 chapters at colleges across the U.S.

Spenner said the group’s first gathering, held in the DiGiorgio Student Union, drew nearly 30 girls, but she has seen dozens of more students get involved over the last few semesters.

“We are a chapter of Delight which is a national organization of over 200 chapters,” said Greta Oswald, a junior and coordinator for Delight. “It adds to the feeling of community knowing hundreds of women are doing the same thing as us each week.”

Jack Blankenship, the campus minister at Winthrop’s Baptist Collegiate Ministry, said Delight is important, because it creates an opportunity for students to have a place where they can learn more about the spiritual components of life.

“We are not just physical beings, we’re relational beings, we’re also spiritual beings, so having an opportunity to explore the questions of faith, while becoming who you’re meant to be is a really important thing,” said Blankenship.

Leaders say Delight has many events planned, including weekly Bible studies, service projects, craft nights and music bing. The say having a community like this can be helpful for students as they explore who they are and who they are becoming.

* Editor’s note: Karson Byerly & Anne Marie Bell have both been involved with Delight as members. Most of the reporting for this story was collected in past semesters