Cheney UCC helps organize community gift program

When no one was available to organize the Christmas Gifts for Cheney Kids program of the Cheney Outreach Center in 2008, Sally Shamp of Cheney UCC, a volunteer with the center, picked up doing it.

Christie Bruntlett and Sally Shamp check the gift box at Cheney UCC as they anticipate the gift distribution day.

“I couldn’t let it go by the wayside,” she said, “so I asked the church to help and it became a UCC project that year.

“Many parents in Cheney wouldn’t be able to give gifts to their children without our help,” she said. 
Last year, parents of 207 children “shopped” for free gifts on the distribution days.  This year, distribution is Dec. 13 and 14.

Since she retired nine years ago, Shamp has volunteered with Cheney Outreach.

For two years after the roof of the Wren Pierson Building collapsed under heavy snow, Cheney UCC housed Cheney Outreach.  Now it’s in a rebuilt Wren Pierson Building with the food bank, clothing bank and City Parks and Recreation.

Donors put gifts in collection boxes at 14 stores and businesses, and five churches—Emmanuel Lutheran, St. Paul Episcopal, Cheney United Methodist, the Church of the Nazarene and Cheney UCC.  Some send money to Cheney Outreach.

When giving seemed down before the deadline, Shamp made an appeal to members at worship and the women’s fellowship, which provided generous gifts.

For information, call 509-235-8900.

 

Copyright Pacific Northwest Conference News © December 2011