It began shortly before Covid when we shut the doors to our “Wee Care,” the longest-running nonprofit day care in our city. We just couldn’t adequately staff it any longer. Being good Presbyterians, we formed a committee to sort, clean and donate many items that were once used in the lower level of our church. Once we cleared the way, we spent time to pray and clear our minds to discern what God desired for this space. It was revealed that we needed to keep this space for nonprofits and community outreach. God is very wise and empowered us to do a massive renovation of the 50-year-old kids’ restrooms with the emphasis to make them universal and ADA-compliant. We were very fortunate and grateful to have benefited from the Frank L. and Laura L. Smock Foundation and Monroe City Congregational Mission Grant that supported our efforts.
We wrestled with how to reach outside our walls. We began earlier with a little food pantry and wow, has that been a hit (literally). We have a hard time keeping it stocked. This showed us how much need there continues to be in our community. We made phone calls to our local university, various people and organizations in the community and researched online to see who and what was out there that might be a fit for us.
At first it was a bit discouraging as some of the community leads required a lot of volunteers, lengthy training and youth. Being a smaller, more mature congregation where most everyone was already committing their time and resources made finding the right community partners for us challenging. We realized that what we could offer was space, and we started focusing harder on that and less on what we didn’t have to offer. It was also important to us that our community partners shared our beliefs to welcome and celebrate diversity, inclusion and respect for all people. We are happy to have found four nonprofit organizations whose needs match our resources. Please meet our Community Partners:
- RSVP Retired Senior Volunteer Program is part of Hope Southern Indiana, which tackles hunger in southern Indiana with their food pantry program. They also provide emergency services to individuals and families in crisis and offer programs to help people live a more stable life.
- Use It Again Inc. was founded by physical therapists whose goal is to provide free medical equipment such as crutches, wheelchairs and walkers to those in need so they may be safe in their homes.
- Let Us Learn Inc. works with our community to increase access to healthy food. They work with about nine area schools to plant raised beds where the kids learn how to grow vegetables, plan and budget for meals. They also have a credit recovery program to help kids graduate high school.
- Savannah Smiles Youth Services provides support services to those children in our community who experience the effects of addiction in the home or have lost someone due to addiction. They currently have 87 children actively enrolled in their program, and many times the family members participate. Workshops occur in our Community Room about once a week with about 22 kids participating at a time.
Today, our congregation participates alongside our partners. We not only turned iside out but are flipping out over God’s grace and how God answered our prayers.
Carol Traister; Mount Tabor Presbyterian Church Foundation Committee Leader/Elder; New Albany, Indiana
Let us join in prayer for:
Dina Martinez, Customer Service Representative, Operations, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Brad Masters, VP Business Dev. and Financial Advisor, Trust Services, The Presbyterian Foundation
Let us pray:
God, you always have the best plans for us if we keep knocking and don’t give up. Help us to realize our church extends beyond our walls, and help us to turn more outward to help others regardless of color, race or gender. In Christ’s Almighty name, we humbly pray. Amen.
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