Wenatchee: First UMC visits UMCOR Sager Brown

Wenatchee: First UMC visits UMCOR Sager Brown | By Robin Gates
Photos courtesy of First UMC and UMCOR Sager Brown

The United Methodist Committee on Relief’s (UMCOR) main depot is in Baldwin, La. about 2 1/2 hours from New Orleans. UMCOR is the humanitarian relief and development agency of the United Methodist Church. Our mission team members were Jim and Karen Russell, Claudia Elliott (Leavenworth UMC), John Keebler (NJ), and Jim and Robin Gates. We truly had a great experience working with 60 other volunteers from Tennessee, Texas, and Missouri.

Our largest job – and a first for this week’s volunteers – was packing two containers of layettes, school bags, and health kits for shipping to the Republic of Georgia (near Russia). For other areas to ship to, we assembled health kits and school kits, made school bags and cut baby gowns in the sewing room. On campus we did picture framing, grass cutting, room painting and swept the warehouse twice for which we received gold stars. In the community, we volunteered at Mickey Mouse Head Start, Raintree Elementary, Chez Hope Domestic Shelter, and performed home repairs.

For fun our team want to Lafayette and Avery Island where we toured the Tabasco factory and watched thousands of snowy egrets nesting and feeding their chicks. We saw alligators in the lagoons, on the grass and in Bayou Tech on the swamp tour with Cajun Jack. We arrived in New Orleans during Jazz festival week. There were musicians playing in every park, street corner and on Bourbon St. We overate Creole food at every opportunity: catfish, crawfish, shrimp, alligator, frog legs and sweet potato pancakes.

We sent over 90 school bags in support of this mission – most were made by church member Ruby Reihle.

We appreciate the financial support Wenatchee: First UMC contributed at our Wednesday night dinner in November 2012 and for the ongoing support of all of you in supporting our mission programs. What a trip!

Join us in 2015 and see what Methodists working together can accomplish!

Wenatchee: First UMC Visit http://www.firstumchurch.org for more info on Wenatchee: First UMC. Sunday Worship | 8:00am Chapel Worship | 9:00am Celebration Service | 10:30am Classic Service | Sunday School at both 9:00 & 10:30am along with Nursery room Adult discussion groups at 9:00am

The UMCOR Relief Supply Network Once you assemble relief-supply kits , where can you send them? There are several options. UMCOR runs two supply depots, UMCOR Sager Brown in Baldwin, Louisiana, and UMCOR West in Salt Lake City, Utah. We also coordinate with a network of United Methodist relief-supply depots across the United States. Congregations can send or drop off kits and supplies at the depot nearest to them, assured that their donations will be accounted for and distributed by UMCOR.