MUST Summer Lunches

On June 16th, over 40 women and children from the Abundant Life Circle, the Wings Circle,  and other church and community volunteers met for 2-1/2 hours to produce 1200 sandwiches and lunch bags for the MUST Summer Lunch Program – what a great operation!  That’s A LOT of lunches, folks!  We pre-packed 1200 lunch bags (many were decorated) with a juice box, banana and pretzels.  And we made 1200 ham and cheese sandwiches!   All of these were delivered to a MUST staging center for disbursement.  These lunches are then distributed to children who usually participate in the lunch program at their school during the school year.

Thank you to each of the women who took time out of their schedules to participate in this mission project!

Mary Allphin, thank you so much for keeping the ball rolling to the right people and for passing along this wonderful mission opportunity!

Cindy Stafford, thank you for getting the nursery help organized!

Cathy Fletcher, thank you for organizing this event on behalf of the Abundant Life Circle.  It was such a great opportunity to work beside women in the Wings Circle and others that just wanted to help.  We had at least 3 “neighbors” of church members who wanted to come help and also brought their children!

The Children were an amazing help and scurried around the entire time loading the lunch bags, decorating bags, or making sandwiches!  Thanks to the Moms who provided this opportunity for their children!

Finally, thank you to Jan Miller and the kitchen staff for getting us perfectly stocked for this event!

There likely are other roles and people involved that we have failed to thank.   Please pass along our gratitude to them!   How touching and inspiring to experience the outpouring of our church community and beyond, and to be a part of the nourishment we have been able to provide to so many children!

Kelley Costantino and Allison Redhead
Incoming Abundant Life Circle Co-Chairs

Volunteering to serve at the MUST shelter

Many of you may not know that Mt. Bethel is among the many groups committed to providing volunteers to stay overnight at the MUST shelter, The Elizabeth Inn. This can be one of our most personally rewarding volunteer tasks as we interact with and learn about people who are temporarily homeless. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to find members who will spend the night. Because or our large membership, MBUMC is committed to the 5th, 12th, and 20th of every month. We need to provide at least two people each night. It works great to have a man and a woman or a family unit.

My husband, daughter and I have all stayed there and can say that it is safe and painless, and an eye opening experience when we realized that many of these homeless are families with children!  Some people have a difficult time making it to work the next day after doing laundry for the guests most of the night, but we have many times a year when one or two of the nights are on the weekend!

As of today, most of 2008 has no MBUMC members signed up after June 20th! If you volunteer for this 10 or 12 hour service to some of Cobb County’s poorest, it promises to be more of a blessing to you than to them! to volunteer please email sueleit@mindspring.com or sherry.reed@mtbethel.org.