Book Bag Mission
Each year, New Zion, with their sister churches - Sharon United Methodist Church and Shady Grove United Methodist Church - raises money to provide filled book bags to students in surrounding school districts. The book bags contain appropriate supplies for specific grade ranges. For instance, in elementary book bags, students receive two spiral notebooks, pencils, markers, crayons, rulers, safety scissors, glue, glue sticks, erasers, and much more. High school bags include spiral notebooks, loose-leaf paper, three ring binders, glue sticks, pencils, pens, a calculator, tab dividers, etc. In addition to filled book bags, we also send miscellaneous loose supplies to the districts as well for them to divvy out to teachers who teach in the more impoverished areas. This mission is a costly mission. To raise money, we take up love offerings and do fundraisers, such as our Mother's Day Dinner or Christmas in June Dinner. Once we raise the money and buy the supplies, then we set aside a day and all members who want to participate come to church and we assembly-line pack the bags. Last year, we packed 125 book bags for York School District 1, and we sent the miscellaneous supplies to teachers in Blacksburg High School located in Cherokee county. Each year we try to increase the number of filled bags and the amount of supplies we donate. In addition, we also voted to begin helping local teachers through a grant from our Mission Fund. Beginning in 2015-2016, teachers working in local districts will be able to apply for a grant to receive money to use for supplies for their classrooms. More information about this will follow in later months. For information about our fundraisers, please go to the EVENTS tab.
Partnership Missions
Salkehatchie: Each summer, we partner with the local Salkehatchie group to feed them. We donate snack foods for the volunteers to enjoy throughout the week, help supply funds to the cause, and host a large supper for them during one of the nights of the week. Salkehatchie benefits those who can't afford to make repairs to their homes. Repairs that are necessary for survival, including a new roof, re-flooring homes with cavernous holes in the floor, etc.
Operation Christmas Shoe-Box:
We put together shoe boxes filled with toys and goodies for children in third world countries. This ministry is through Samaritan's Purse, which was started by Franklin Graham, son of the legendary Billy Graham. For the last two years, our church has gone to the actual warehouse and worked in December to send the boxes out.
Stop Hunger Now:
For the first time ever, our church just joined with several other local churches and did a Stop Hunger Now drive. It was hosted at Trinity United Methodist in York, SC. Workers pack nutritional sustenance into bags that will feed four people. So much money has to be raised in order to participate, and this time, the local churches packed 20,000 bags to send to places affected by poverty, devastation, or natural disaster. For more information about this mission, please visit: Stop Hunger Now. To see video from our drive, visit: York Churches Host Stop Hunger Now
Operation Christmas Shoe-Box:
We put together shoe boxes filled with toys and goodies for children in third world countries. This ministry is through Samaritan's Purse, which was started by Franklin Graham, son of the legendary Billy Graham. For the last two years, our church has gone to the actual warehouse and worked in December to send the boxes out.
Stop Hunger Now:
For the first time ever, our church just joined with several other local churches and did a Stop Hunger Now drive. It was hosted at Trinity United Methodist in York, SC. Workers pack nutritional sustenance into bags that will feed four people. So much money has to be raised in order to participate, and this time, the local churches packed 20,000 bags to send to places affected by poverty, devastation, or natural disaster. For more information about this mission, please visit: Stop Hunger Now. To see video from our drive, visit: York Churches Host Stop Hunger Now