Donation Helps Local Charity Complete Expansion Project

BY DEBRA McCOWN
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
ABINGDON, Va. – A new addition is expected to open later this month at the Ecumenical Faith in Action facility, after a $10,000 donation from Food City provided the final piece of funding Wednesday to complete the $138,000 project.
The organization, which provides food, medical and financial help to those in need along with other services, has raised all of the money locally, with businesses, individuals, churches and the town of Abingdon stepping up to help build 1,200 square feet of new space.
“I really want this community to know what can happen when people work together,” Kathi Lowe, executive director of Ecumenical Faith in Action, said Wednesday. “It is this community that has done it.”
Lowe said the addition will mean people can find help at one location and do more things in one visit, rather than returning on different days to access different services.
“I think it’s the right thing to do in the community,” said Steve Shaffer, a district manager for Food City. “The need is there, and we know the need will be fulfilled through these folks.”
The soon-to-be-finished addition will include a meeting room for counseling and other services; a room for the Pharmacy Connection program, which helps people get medicine; a room to take requests from those seeking help; a bookkeeping office; a director’s office; and accessible bathrooms. Plans also are in the works to add a walk-in cooler and freezer to keep donated food fresh until it can be distributed, an addition that will be made by donation of a cooler or using economic stimulus money.
Lowe said hundreds of volunteers give whatever they can – time, money, in-kind donations – but Faith in Action still needs more help, “until things turn around and people have jobs again.”
She said many in our society have become used to abundance and forgotten how to pinch pennies. She also said more people need to step back up to help their neighbors, instead of expecting government to do the job.
“If you’re 55 years old and you need assistance, there’s no government program you fit into,” she said. “If you have children over 6 years old and you’re about to be homeless, you don’t fit into a government program.”
She tells the stories of the people her organization has helped: There is the elderly couple who has only $28 left from their Social Security check after buying medicine and oxygen; and the bedridden patient who can’t pay the electric bill for the machines that keep him alive. She talks about the woman who works full-time and also volunteers at Faith in Action, who is saving her money in hopes of bringing the payments current on the car in which she lives.
“That’s a normal situation,” Lowe said. “A lot of the college students who come in here to volunteer will tell us they’re amazed at how close all of us are to being on this side of the counter instead of the other side.”
The numbers, she said, are still going up quickly – as many as a hundred new families a month are being served by the food bank as ever more requests come in from those who have lost jobs and are running out of unemployment benefits. Many, she said, are people who’ve never had to ask for help before.
“The problem is everybody now is having to tell people we’re out of money. Last month we spent over $10,000 to help people financially. This month we’re almost at $10,000 and today’s only the 10th,” Lowe said.
“Our biggest fear is the upcoming heating season,” she said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. All we can do is give what we get, and give it as wisely as we can and try to make it stretch as far as we can.”

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