At Sheridan First United Methodist Church, kids collect quarters every Sunday morning during the Children’s Moments during worship. The quarters are placed into a tube that when full holds $100. This offering goes to various missions that impact food insecurity.
In 2022, the children bought chickens and goats through Heifer Project and helped to fund our backpack program in the local schools.
At the United Women of Faith annual meeting in Orlando last year, members Zoe Hines, DeeAnn Daniel, and Betty Cook met Steve and Bonnie Laycock, members of Conway First UMC. The Laycocks help lead the Conway First UMC team to this mission in Guatemala (Stove Builders of Guatemala – Advance #3022040). The Sheridan First UMC members came back inspired by the Laycocks, and this is how the idea for Guatemala stove missions began for Sheridan.
“As each stove costs $120 (in donations), we thought we’d fill the tube up twice (and add a little of the church’s budgeted mission money), so we could get two stoves,” shared Rev. Todd-Paul Taulbee, senior pastor at Sheridan First UMC. “The kids built models of the cookstoves at UMK on a Wednesday night and then challenged the congregation to match their funds so that we could buy four stoves.”
On Sunday, January 22, Steve and Bonnie Laycock came to worship at Sheridan First UMC. They brought a full-size model of the Guatemalan cookstove, had slides to show during worship, and made a short presentation to the congregation about this mission. The kids then announced that the congregation had provided funds to send 18 cookstoves to Guatemala. Our offering that morning revealed enough for an additional two, so we are thrilled to be able to fund 20 stoves in total!
Rev. Taulbee added, “One of the best parts of our Sunday worship is having our kids put their quarters in the tube. We talk each week about what their money will do to help feed kids in our community or other parts of the world. Sometimes we have to wait for a minute or two for the kids to finish putting all their quarters in the tube. They are almost halfway done filling the tube for the backpack program (again) since they finished raising their quarters for the cookstoves. The excitement of our kids in giving to help those in need has revealed a generosity in the rest of our congregation. I am deeply proud of the kids of Sheridan First UMC, and to be the pastor of such a loving, generous, and dynamic congregation.”