Members of the Central Pentecostal Church are ready to share with others – by the truckload.
Sandy Lake first nation is the largest fly-in reserve in northern Ontario, and is about as far north from Toronto as Jacksonville, Florida is south.
A few months ago Ida Anishinabie, prevention coordinator for Child and Family Services contacted Pastor John Edward at Central Pentecostal Church and asked if they might be able to acquire a truckload of clothing for needy families on the reserve.
Sandy Lake has a population of about 2,700 people and around 60 per cent are on social assistance. There are many children in the community including about 400 elementary School children and 225 high school students.
At first this seemed like an overwhelming request but after discussion and prayer, the leadership team at the church felt they would respond positively to this unusual request.
The church has a standing connection with Sandy Lake and has run missions trips there in the past including a work team in 2012. They have worked with the pastor of the Pentecostal Church on the reserve, Allan Rae, who is also a business owner, and the band council member.
Request letters were sent out or taken personally to several merchants asking for donations of clothing, coats, shoes, and boots.
Donations for Sandy Lake began to stack up. Hundreds of boxes full of clothing, as well as a large donation of queen sized bed sets have been collected so far to be shipped to Sandy Lake in late February.
The church has collected about 300 boxes full of clothing, boots, shoes, and other items like bedding and blankets. Many were donated from various retailers like Value Village, Goodwill Industries, New 2 You, Bibles for Missions.
Sew on Fire ministries in Burlington has also been helping with donations, offering backpacks with hats, mitts and school supplies for all the children in school.
It’s estimated that about 600 boxes of clothing donations will be collected by the end of the endeavor.
The preparation for the trip has been a large community effort, involving many volunteers, donors and supporters. The church is truly thankful for everything that the community has done to ensure the success of this mission, officials note.
Besides the boxes of clothing, the church received 58 new mattress sets including box springs, donated by Simmons Canada. About half will go to Sandy Lake and half will be sent to Sioux Lookout in another relief effort that is taking place the same week in February.
Staff at Central Pentecostal Church are very appreciative of all the donations, as well as the time and effort that has been put in by the many volunteers who are helping sort and organize all the clothing and getting it ready for shipping.
The banana boxes used for packing have also been donated by Walmart, FreshCo and L&M. Even storage space has been offered up by a local business and is accommodating all the mattresses and full boxes until they are ready to ship out.
The mission trip to Sandy Lake is taking place from Feb. 18 to 26.
The donations will ship from Elora by transport truck via Vandermarel Trucking, and the rest of the team will fly to Thunder Bay to meet up with the truck and the pastor of a church from Sandy Lake. From there the trip will take about 20 hours, much of which will be spent driving on a winter road.
The truck transportation is being paid for by Sandy Lake first nations under authority of Chief Bart Meekis.
Submitted by Richard Keast
