UPIKE Magazine Spring/Summer 2019

Page 32

Buckets

FOR BACKPACKS

By Michelle Goff

Last season, the University of Pikeville Women’s Basketball team scored 463 field goals, and in doing so raised $1,748 for Pikeville United Methodist Church’s (PUMC) Backpack Ministry. The team’s involvement in the ministry began after coach Clifton Williams contacted PUMC Pastor Willard Knipp and Youth Pastor Chris Bartley, asking how the team could make the biggest difference in the lives of community members. Knipp and Bartley told Williams about the Backpack Ministry, which provides food security during weekends and school breaks for local children. Williams pledged one dollar for every bucket his team scored. Once the team’s Buckets for Backpacks program was publicized, people in the community and around the Commonwealth matched Williams’ pledge or donated directly to the program. The team’s involvement made an immediate impact on the ministry. “One morning a week after the partnership with the team started, I got a call from a guidance counselor,” Bartley explains. “There was a student who had been removed from the home and was waiting for a foster family. Within minutes, we had food to that student.” Bartley adds that if not for the partnership, which had allowed the church to purchase additional food, they would not have been able to get the food to the student in such a timely manner. Buckets for Backpacks has also given the church the opportunity to save money by purchasing in bulk. On Wednesday evenings, the church youth group gathers to bag the food using an assembly line method. Each bag typically includes 15 to 20 items, including

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UPIKE MAGAZINE | SPRING/SUMMER 2019


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