Historic Plymouth Congregational Church at 3400 Devon Road off of Main Highway held its annual Mission Fair on Sunday January 12 after the 10am worship.
Plymouth has been serving the Grove community since 1897 and holds the annual event in order to introduce residents and church members to various service opportunities in our community.
“We are grateful that 15 of our closest community partners in service joined us at the Mission Fair, said Pastor Al Bunis. “We had over 200 people attend and have the chance to learn about their organzizations as well as Plymouth’s service ministries. And as people were learning about ways to get involved, it was clear that everyone was having a great time…and also eating well.”
The twenty participating community organizations/projects were:
- Chapman Partnership for the Homeless
- Miami Rescue Mission
- Habitat for Humanity
- Coconut Grove Crisis Food Pantry
- Thelma Gibson Health Initiative
- Coconut Grove Cares/The Barnyard
- Footprints Foundation – Birthing Kits for Africa
- Family Resource Center
- ICU Baby
- CARE (Christian Academy for Reading Excellence)
- This ‘N That Shop
- Plymouth Emergency Response Fund
- Plymouth Board of Outreach and Missions
- Migrant Fellowship
- AIDS Walk 2020
- Shine/Alliance for Aging
- Harvesting Hope/Migrant Families
- START program for the West Grove
- Rebuilding Together – Miami Dade
- Jazz Brunch Scholarship Fund
- Jamaica December Christmas Party
The event is structured to provide a relaxed environment to promote volunteer activity and new connections and give residents as well as church members a chance to meet representatives of each organizations/projects to discuss and learn about service opportunities.
| “It’s a privilege to work with children to build a strong academic and spiritual foundation that we hope will impact the rest of their lives,” said Marty Steinberg, the President of CARE Elementary School, which offers free private school education in a Christian environment to children in Overtown. “But we can only do that through the generous support of the community. We had such a productive morning at Plymouth and signed up lots of people to come to our school to read and give presentations to our students.” | |||
| Wendy M. Viciana, Senior Manager at the Chapman Partnership for the Homeless said the annual event at Plymouth Church is an event she looks forward to each year and is an important part of Chapman Partnership’s community outreach. | |||
“Plymouth’s long-standing support of Chapman Partnership is essential in fulfilling our mission of empowering our homeless families,” said Viciana. “Year after year, Plymouth steps up to provide us with uniforms for our kids for Back to School, monthly meal service to our 500 men, women and children, and Welcome Bags filled with essentials for families upon their arrival to our center.”
“The core of Plymouth’s mission is, as Christ says, ‘to love our neighbors as ourselves’- it sure felt like everyone in the room today had that goal in mind,” said Pastor Al Bunis.
More info about this event, as well as upcoming events including a chili cook off on January 26, is available at plymouthmiami.org and on facebook at @plymouthmiami
