An Outstanding Partner: Myers Park United Methodist Church, Charlotte, NC

We are always grateful to our partners for their constant support. Myers Parks United Methodist Church certainly leads the way in supporting KOP and Jubilee Children's Center. MPUMC's Jubilee Foundation contributed the seed money towards the construction of Jubilee Children's Center. These past years, JCC has received several grants from the Jubilee Foundation to continue different phases of the construction. Both the church and the church family are extremely involved in KOP's Sponsor a Child program. Every year, the children of MPUMC also contribute their share with collections of school supplies, socks and underwear, toiletries, sweaters, etc. They also get personally involved with making bracelets and necklaces for our children at JCC.

After showing pictures of our children to the Providence Sunday School class and explaining to them that our cows at Jubilee Children's Center have died because of a severe drought which left the children without milk, the members immediately passed the hat. Then, in order to provide money consistently on a monthly basis, Providence Sunday School decided to have a giant yard sale and raised enough money to supply milk to our 98 children for a whole year.

Last year, we had the opportunity to ship books to start a library at JCC and picked up several truck loads of books, encyclopedia, fiction, non-fiction and reference books from MPUMC and sent it to our children.

We now have two of their members on KOP's board of directors: Bruce Bailey who visited JCC in 2006 and participated in the Kilimanjaro climb, and raised money to start the KEEP Fund. Derrick Willard joined the board this year and has already helped us with presentations to the community. He also spearheaded the milk program.

Our liaison with the Myers Park church family is Barbara Cribbs. Together with Leigh Ann Smith, they are tremendous help with the Sponsor a Child project.

Then there are our sponsors: the individuals and families who sponsor our children. They are the backbone of financing the operation of JCC.Their contributions are totally restricted to the operation of JCC and are transferred monthly to Kenya. It pays for food, clothing, schooling, and Christian nurturing of the 98 orphans presently calling JCC. In addition, these sponsors send cards, letters, pictures, and stickers to the children and make them feel part of their own family.

We thank God for inspiring His people to generously share their blessings with our children!