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Great Day of Service aids poor, disabled

 
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1:30 P.M. EST April 23, 2010 | WASHINGTON (UMNS)

Foundry United 
Methodist Church volunteers load food into vehicles for transport to 
HIV/AIDS clients' homes. UMNS photos by John Coleman.
Foundry United Methodist Church volunteers load food into vehicles for
transport to HIV/AIDS clients' homes. UMNS photos by John Coleman.
View in Photo Gallery

Foundry United Methodist Church got a head start on the denomination’s Change the World campaign with its own Great Day of Service a week earlier.

Tomorrow and Sunday, United Methodists across the United States and around the world are participating in nearly 1,000 events in 16 countries. The Change the World weekend coincides with World Malaria Day on Sunday, April 25.

On April 17, more than 120 volunteers from Foundry fanned out to 13 social service agencies around the city to prepare, package and deliver meals; stock food pantries; do painting, cleaning and landscaping; visit and assist elderly residents; and play with developmentally disabled youth.

“While planning for this Great Day of Service months ago, we learned about the Change the World campaign and realized that the goals of both are similar,” said Amihan Jones, a young-adult missionary who coordinated the event.

“There’s something for everyone to do,” Jones said. “We knew this would be a good event for people who have been involved in missions for a long time, and for first-time participants, too. It is a wonderful way to build our faith community by serving others through missions.”

Several dozen volunteers stocked food banks or packaged and delivered meals for agencies that serve people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other illnesses. Others helped serve meals at a weekend feeding program for homeless persons, or did cleaning, painting, gardening and landscaping at a school, a transitional home for low-income families and another residence, named Susanna Wesley House, for women undergoing life transitions.

Mother-daughter team

Tammi Reilly and her 13-year-old daughter, Katelyn, visited a resident at Emmaus Services for the Aged, and helped clean her room. Both are active in outreach ministries at Foundry, but this was the first time they’ve participated in one together.

“Giving back to others is important at all points in our lives, regardless of age,” Tammi Reilly said. “Churches don’t always have family mission opportunities; so this was really nice for us to do together.

Vanessa Smiley 
helps Jules, 4, bag cookies for delivery with meals to social service 
agencies.
Vanessa Smiley helps Jules, 4, bag cookies for
delivery with meals to social service agencies.
View in Photo Gallery

She plans to go to Haiti with a mission team from Foundry next year, but not without her daughter.

“We’re a team,” she said.

The church added a global aspect to the day to coincide with a key focus of the Change the World campaign. Of the hundreds of red “Love they Neighbor” T-shirts sold for $10, half of the proceeds will go to the Nothing but Nets anti-malaria campaign, a collaboration of The United Methodist Church, the U.N. Foundation and the National Basketball Association. Elizabeth McKee Gore, who directs that campaign, is a member of Foundry.

Foundry held its first Great Day of Service event last November and plans an encore this fall.

“We really could take this framework and triple the number of people and mission opportunities locally and globally by collaborating with other churches and other faiths on a grander scale,” said Reilly, who has served on the church’s mission council. “It could begin to change the world and impact many lives.”

*Coleman is a freelance writer based in Washington.

News media contact: David Briggs, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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