There are some changes taking place at the Clarke County Baptist Center that the public needs to be aware of.
One of the changes involves how the food ministry will work. Currently, there are two different methods that they use to assist with food: C.A.N. and an emergency food bag at the Baptist Center.
“We have Clarke Assistance for the Needy, or the C.A.N. ministry, that is run from the center behind the library. That is open from 8:00 – 12:00 every Thursday and is a partnership between us and the Mississippi Food Network,” explained Clarke County Associational Mission Strategist Matthew Johnson. “That’s been going for probably over 20 years. That is our primary food ministry and is well-regulated. People have to sign up for it, and the amount of food that is distributed is based on the number of individuals in the household. They are assigned times to pick up and stuff like that. That ministry is supported not only by food that comes from the Mississippi Food Network but also by Walmart in Waynesboro. They donate to that twice a week. They donate meat and bread from the bakery, so it is high quality stuff. There are also some goodies that they give that just makes things fun, so we do get cakes and cookies and things. Also, due to the generosity of people in Clarke County, we’ve had what we call emergency bags here at the Baptist Center. What we’ve learned with that in recent years is that it was more efficient for us to purchase the exact food items we would be giving out since we either wouldn’t get enough of an item to make the bags the same, or it would be items that we couldn’t use because it wasn’t essential food stuff. We ended up making a deal with Southern Market, now Piggly Wiggly, where once a quarter we would purchase the items we need at market cost and tax free. We’ve always had those emergency bags available for anytime anybody came and needed one. That’s just something we did in addition to C.A.N.”
Now, they are having to make a huge change. Once all the emergency bags for this quarter are gone, they will no longer have emergency food bags at the Baptist Center to hand out. All food will have to be collected through C.A.N.
There are multiple reasons they are making this change to their food ministry. One reason is that it will assist them in keeping better records and streamline the ministry since everything will take place at one location in a designated timeframe instead of being split between two locations. Using only C.A.N. for their food ministry will help them better serve the community with high quality food items.
The other reason they are making the change involves funding. The Baptist Center runs on donations, and funding has gone down. They are making changes to be better stewards of the funds they have.
“We have had drastic cutbacks at the Baptist Center because we have had some churches exit the association and no longer support us,” informed Matthew. “That’s one of the reasons we’re only open from 8:00 to 12:00 now. We are now considered a part-time institution, so we’ve had to cut some corners as far as cost goes. That’s been a big hit on us. We were spending about $1,400 a quarter on food, which was a great price; however, if you add that up over the course of a year, it’s really close to $6,000 a year. That’s a big amount of money for us at this point in time considering our funding is drastically reduced.”
The other change that is taking place involves how they assist with utilities.
To help adjust to the reduced funding, they are readjusting how they do benevolence so that they can be better stewards with what they have and still benefit people who are in need of assistance. Most people are accustomed to how the benevolence ministry has worked in the past, and it has ended up being one of the largest, if not the largest, benevolence ministries in the State of Mississippi.
“For years, we offered $100 assistance once a year for people who needed help on their utilities. We keep immaculate records and can tell you the day you came in, and it had to be a calendar year before we would assist you again. That was for electricity and water utilities and things like that. We would pay the company directly. About a year ago, we limited the amount to $50 instead of $100 because it allowed us to help more people since funding was lower than it had been,” expressed Matthew. “It was supposed to only be a little something on the side for us, but it morphed into something a lot bigger than it needed to be and ended up being one of the primary things we did sometimes.”
Now, there will be a new procedure for how to attain assistance with utilities. Although anyone is able to apply for utility assistance, priority will be given to those who are part of the Clarke County Baptist Association depending on how much funding is available.
“Beginning on March 1, we will pay $50 towards your utilities if you come pick up a form and have the form filled out by someone in authority at your church,” explained Matthew. “It’s a very detailed form explaining the situation. The pastor has to write a letter and attach it to the form explaining the situation, and then the pastor himself has to call the office and verify that he himself did it. We know people are likely to fill everything out themselves and return it, so we have to have a call from the pastor saying that he is sending in a form for individual X, explains the situation included in the form, and gives an explanation of why it shouldn’t happen again. We want to be able to give people a hand up, not a hand out. We’re not trying to be mean to anybody, but we just cannot continue like this because the situation just keeps getting bigger and bigger. We’re still glad to help, but there has to be some verification from a church in Clarke County that it is a needed situation. It doesn’t have to be a church that is part of the Clarke County Baptist Association, but it does have to be a church in the county. The form and letter cannot come from a member of the church. If a church currently doesn’t have a pastor, then we can work something out about accepting it from an interim or head deacon or something if there is a situation like that.”
They are doing everything they can to help improve their ministries to better assist the community with the resources that they have.
