UBC Christmas Baskets of Hope Praise

Praise the Lord for the great things we have witnessed through Baskets of Hope [BoH] ministry! During our Christmas Baskets of Hope we had 4 professions of faith during our evening service, 1 young girl who invited Christ into her heart and 3 adults that re-dedicated their lives to Christ! We thank the Lord for His provision through the foundation that has made all this possible plus the generosity of our folks at Urbancrest. We were able to bless a total of 255 [250 baskets and 5 others with gift cards] families through our Baskets of Hope for Christmas! Their kids we blessed with approximately 450 gifts too! In addition, we were able to bless other kids through Toys for Tots with the balance of toys that were not picked up at BoH! In total this year, we have given away 629 Baskets of Hope [or combination of gift cards]. Last year our total was 401! This represents an increase of 57% over last year! No wonder our volunteers are so tired! On behalf of our Baskets of Hope team, led by Cheryl Kemp [a big thanks to Cheryl too], we also want to express our thanks and appreciation for all the UBC volunteers that have worked together to make this ministry possible. Susan Byrd with her assembly team out did themselves in record time assembling the baskets and distributing these and the gifts to the families. There must be at least 100 UBC volunteers involved in this work! Thanks to Cathy Dwire and Dewayne Jeffers for coordinating our teams to pick up our food from Aldi’s and deliver it to UBC in spite of the bad weather! Kelly Cummings led our registration team who invited our guests and registered them, thank you and your team for all their hard work! Sandy Huddleston coordinated our team of counselors, Pat Mitchell helped us develop our database and Jessica Copenhaver coordinated our gifts for the children…thank you. We also praise the Lord that the foundation that has been blessing us with financial gifts to make Baskets of Hope possible, has decided to help us this coming year in 2011! This is awesome news as we look to sharing the gospel with our community while meeting their needs this coming year. Get ready for Easter BoH 2011!