Adventist Community Services

Este invierno, los miembros de la Unión de Columbia han donado unos 1,400 abrigos a los necesitados a través de campañas y programas de Servicios Comunitarios Adventistas.

Adventist Community Services of Greater Washington (ACSGW)  is one of 24 regional charities recently recognized in The Washingtonian magazine's "Doing Good" feature that recommends area nonprofits to support with holiday season giving.

“Helping people in the community doesn’t always have to equal baptisms,” said one enthusiastic attendee.

Story by Debra McKinney Banks; Photo by Sean Robinson

Harriet Langley, a member of Allegheny East Conference’s Pisgah church in Bryans Road, Md., could never forget the Jefferson family. As a long-serving member of the church’s Adventist Community Services (ACS) team, she had helped many, many people, but this family was different. “The father had gotten hurt on the job and couldn’t work,” she recalls. “When they couldn’t pay the bills, he and his family were put out of the trailer they were living in.”

For many years, the building directly behind Potomac Conference’s Beltsville (Md.) church served as a parsonage. But on Tuesday, September 4, the building became a branch office of the Prince George’s County Department of Social Services. The office, located in the Adventist Community Services house at 4220 Ammendale Road, will offer emergency temporary cash assistance, food stamps and medical assistance.

“The disaster has passed but winter is coming and they still need blankets, coats, jackets, sweaters and so much more,” said Ricardo Cala, pastor of the Paterson Temple Spanish church in New Jersey. “In the name of God first and then the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the New Jersey Conference, we are here to help.”

Lifelong Paterson, N.J., residents Kathy and Greg are expecting a baby in one month. However, due to flooding from Hurricane Irene they have not been able to get to her home on Haledon Street for the past week. Recalling that when she left she had water up to her knees in her living room, Kathy said, “Our apartment was condemned this week, and we have been in a shelter, and we need all the help we can get.”

Conference Adventist Community Services (ACS) directors and the executive directors of several metro ministries gathered at the Columbia Union Conference headquarters recently.