United Church of God

Nashville Congregation Raises Money to Fund Camps, Project Linus

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Nashville Congregation Raises Money to Fund Camps, Project Linus

Even before the summer began we held a yard sale to benefit the youth camp in Jamaica. Over a two-day sale we gained $1,800 for the camp. At the end of the sale we could not believe the number of things we still had. “Visions” of the story of the loaves and fishes in Matthew 14 had us rethinking our mission. So we continued the next week with an additional sale, this time to benefit Camp Tomahawk, our local pre-teen camp. This sale raised over $1,000.

Even with these amazing results we were astonished at the number of sale items we still had. What were we to do? We did not want to continue having yard sales. We had to find someone with whom to share our bounty. A neighbor of one of our Church families was having a sale to offset continuing long-term medical expenses for her daughter. We packed up our “baskets of leftovers” and donated them to her.

We were left with a wonderful feeling as we surveyed how God had multiplied our efforts to help not only our Church camps, but others as well. Our God is a great God.

Another project a couple of our ladies, Elaine Branch and her mother Mary White, have embarked on is Project Linus, a non-profit organization named after the Peanuts character who loves his blanket.

Project Linus volunteer members make blankets for children in need: those in hospitals, long-term health care facilities and homeless shelters.

These women, not seeking rewards, are exemplifying God’s love by nurturing those in need. They have seen a need and have stepped up to fill a portion of that need. They started a local branch of the project, and in the past year they have made and donated hundreds of blankets and are going strong.

Yet another group of Nashville women has set out to collect much needed items for a local homeless shelter. So far we have collected several boxes of vital needs items and plan to make this an ongoing project, donating boxes every quarter to a shelter.

Between helping with youth camps, homeless shelters, hospitals, etc. we hope to fulfill the law of love Christ has asked of us all. Many thanks to our unsung heroes.