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  • Makenzie Thomas unboxes soap while Gwyneth Sneed, back, stocks the shelves with dish soap at Christians Concerned as part of a group from First United Methodist Church. Joshua Kellogg/The Duncan Banner

    Makenzie Thomas unboxes soap while Gwyneth Sneed, back, stocks the shelves with dish soap at Christians Concerned as part of a group from First United Methodist Church.
October 5, 2012

Youth clean Christians Concerned

Joshua Kellogg The Duncan Banner

DUNCAN — With the bounce of youthful energy, children from First United Methodist Church volunteered to help stock, vacuum, mop and sweep Christians Concerned Wednesday night.

Once a week, the third through fifth-graders from the Wednesday Night Live program hopped on the bus and traveled down to Willow Avenue to help clean the non-profit agency building

“We want the children involved, in any way possible,” Board of Directors Member ‘Blu’ Miller said. “They need to be aware that there are hungry people in Duncan that need to be fed.”

An United Way of Stephens County agency, Christians Concerned helps provide food to approximately eight to 10 families a day with the aid of the food from the Regional Food Bank in Oklahoma City and food drives hosted by organizations across the county.

“We have one paid employee and everyone else is a volunteer and we have different groups host food drives for us,” Miller said. “All the food we don’t receive from the food drives, we have to purchase locally.”

Miller said the United Way has been very supportive of the non-profit, providing money to help purchase additional goods and reach the wide spectrum of aid the agency provides.

Starting out in 1969 with providing food donations, Miller said the organization has expanded to providing financial aid with utilities, some medication and rental assistance for people in real dire situations.

While the children scurried across the building, helping each other stock the shelves with laundry detergent and mopping the tile in the front of the building, Amanda Warburton was making sure the children stayed on task.

Warburton works with the children’s Wednesday night program at FUMC and says youth from the church been coming volunteering their time at Christians Concerned for more than five years. The current group which cleaned the place Wednesday evening has been coming for about one month.

“We like to reach out to the community and we found a need here and want to get work done,” Warburton said.

Warburton said by getting the youth volunteering at a young age, it informs them of the need the community could use.

“It starts to teach them to get out in the community and starting projects and service for others,” Warburton said.

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