Of all the exciting stuff that seems to be happening with RiverChurch, there is one particular area that we are extremely excited about: backpacks. The very first outreach opportunity for RiverChurch will be a partnership with a local organization called the Nehemiah Project, that is working to put literally thousands of backpacks together to be delivered to students in the lower income communities of Chattanooga. In a couple of weeks we will be assembling the backpacks complete with school supplies and a Bible, and the following week, we’ll be personally handing these backpacks out at a local school. Our very first offerings, that we have received at our weekly prayer time, have been solely designated to help purchase these backpacks. We’re making a small dent, but a dent nonetheless.
Let me share with you a portion of an email that was forwarded to me this morning about why this project is so important:
Several Principals shared with me the great things that were going on at their schools, because of the volunteers that had come to know their schools through the partnerships of The Nehemiah Project. They also shared heartbreaking stories of the poverty of their students, and how one school had gone to all dark blue uniforms because the parents did not wash the clothes of the children. And another story of how they have set a policy that if a child gets in trouble at school and is in need of being sent home, they are to not send that child home until they have had school breakfast and school lunch, because that will be the only food that child will have that day. -Beth Trussell, Executive Director, Nehemiah Project.
While this is the sad reality that kids face right here in Chattanooga, it simply reiterates the need for the Church to BE the Church.
If you would like to help provide a backpack for a kid this year, you can send a gift of $10 designated for “backpacks” and we’ll make sure the Nehemiah Project is able to help one more kid this year.
Send donations marked “backpacks” to:
RiverChurch / PO Box 22054 / Chattanooga, TN 37422