Today in the Mission Yearbook - Mid-Kentucky Presbytery churches help Kentuckians eliminate more than $4.5 million in medical debt

Presbytery partners with RIP Medical Debt during a summertime donor campaign

October 22, 2023

Photo by Jonathan Sebastiao via Unsplash

Presbyterian church members became passionate about the plight of medical debtors who can’t afford their medical bills after learning about a debt relief effort offered by the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt organization. Through a donor campaign launched in their churches over the summer, together they raised enough money to abolish $4,577,749.43 of medical debt for thousands of Kentucky residents.

According to a report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, medical bills account for 69% of furnished collections (debt collectors who collect on behalf of original creditors for a fee), followed by telecommunications at 12.5% and utilities at 4.5%.

Recipients of medical debt relief will be notified with a RIP Medical Debt branded letter over the next week or two.

RIP acquires medical debts from hospitals and debt collectors on the secondary debt market. The nonprofit only purchases medical debts belonging to people who are four times or more below the federal poverty level or who have medical debt that is 5% or more of their gross annual income. Medical debt relief is source-driven, and therefore random, and cannot be requested. Thus, recipients are completely surprised when they learn their debt has been abolished.

“Not only are the debts abolished, RIP Medical Debt restores their credit scores,” said Daniel Lempert, speaking for RIP Medical Debt. “This allows them to move forward with their lives in many positive ways.”

Steve Makela, chair of the Mid-Kentucky Presbytery Board of Trustees, was inspired to initiate the program as he became more deeply aware of the great discrepancy in the billing practices of health care providers regarding those with good insurance versus those without that support. Most importantly, he said, “this effort further demonstrates our concern for the broader needs of all individuals throughout our communities, much like the installation of free car-charging stations in some of our church parking lots have done.”

The Rev. Dr. John L. Odom, general presbyter of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, said, “The Presbyterians of central Kentucky want to bring financial wholeness because people shouldn’t be forced to choose between life and health and potential bankruptcy. We pray every week in the Lord’s Prayer for God ‘to forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors.’ Working to wipe away the medical debt of others is a sure way to put our prayers into action.”

Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, a regional governing body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is composed of 47 congregations in 29 counties in the center of the Commonwealth. To learn more, go here.

RIP Medical Debt is a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2014 by two former debt collectors. To date RIP has acquired — and abolished — more than $9 billion of medical debt, helping more than 6 million families. RIP purchases debts for a fraction of their face value in bundled portfolios. Learn more here.

Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, Special to Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: Mid-Kentucky Presbytery help Kentuckians eliminate medical debt

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Dayna Oliver, Mission Associate III, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Laura Olliges, Vice President, Finance & Accounting, Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program

Let us pray

Lord, thank you for allowing us to learn from such powerful people of God. Help us to grow in patience, hope, endurance and love. Continue to give us the strength we need to continue to love and grow in you. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Presbyterian Center staff joins with Mid-Kentucky Presbytery to gather hygiene kits

Together the groups assembled and shipped 1,256 kits for use by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance

July 20, 2023

Enough donated items to complete 1,256 hygiene 

kits were gathered and shipped by Presbyterian 

Center staff and volunteers from Mid-Kentucky 

Presbytery. Colleagues at the Presbyterian 

Distribution Service collected and organized items 

for the kits. (Photo by Mark Koenig)

It began, as so much seems to begin these days, with an email.

“The mission committee of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery is ready to again collect hygiene kits for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance,” wrote Ruth Welch, coordinator of the project for the presbytery. “We hope the Presbyterian Center will join in collecting, sorting and assembling these kits.”

The decision was quickly made to partner with the presbytery and plans went into motion to encourage participation by colleagues at the Presbyterian Center and who work for PC(USA) agencies and entities in other locations. Key to this effort was Maha Kolko, who had just started work as project manager for Community Outreach and Volunteerism in Human Resources, part of the Administrative Services Group. Kolko’s role includes helping colleagues respond to such volunteer opportunities.

Mid-Kentucky Presbytery has collected items for hygiene kits for several years. This year marked the first time since the onset of the pandemic that people would gather in person to sort and organize the items and to assemble the kits.

Flyers went up in the elevators at the Presbyterian Center. Emails encouraged participation, as did announcements on CenterNet, the national staff’s intranet site.

Colleagues responded. Some brought combs and soap, toothbrushes and towels, and other needed items to the Presbyterian Center and to the Presbyterian Distribution Service warehouse. Others made cash donations.

Maha Kolko assembles hygiene kits at Beulah Presbyterian 

Church on Saturday. (Photo by Mark Koenig)

Volunteers from the Presbyterian Center, recruited by Kolko, delivered the donated items to Beulah Presbyterian Church in Louisville, where they were combined with items gathered from across the presbytery. Volunteers joined people from congregations in Mid-Kentucky Presbytery to sort and organize the items. Finally, at the end of the week, volunteers joined people from the presbytery and other organizations to form an efficient assembly line to create the hygiene kits containing the collected items.

This year’s project resulted in 1,256 hygiene kits assembled and shipped to the Disaster Assistance Center warehouse at Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. From Ferncliff, the kits will be shipped to places and situations in need around the world. In addition, more than 800 toothbrushes, over 500 nail clippers, some 400 washcloths and an unknown number of combs will also be sent to Ferncliff. Staff and volunteers there will assemble these items into kits along with items collected in other places.

“It was wonderful to help my new colleagues at the Presbyterian Center partner with Mid-Kentucky Presbytery on this important project,” said Kolko. “We look forward to helping create more than 1,256 kits in 2024 when we join in responding to the invitation the Rev. Dr. John Odom [Mid-Kentucky’s general presbyter] made to those who gathered to assemble the kits: ‘Thank you! See you again next year.’”

Learn more about PDA’s hygiene kits as well as other needed kits here.

Mark Koenig, Administrative Services Group, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Today’s Focus: Mid-Kentucky Presbytery and Presbyterian Center assembles hygiene kids for PDA

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Kari Hay,  Mission Specialist, Director’s Office, Theology, Formation & Evangelism, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Robert Hay, Senior Ministry Relations Officer, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray

Almighty God, we are thankful for the example set by your Son, Jesus Christ, in teaching others through his preaching, teaching and healing. Keep our churches as they seek to follow that example faithfully in the places where they serve in his name today. Amen.