FCCWG Mission Rebuild Mayfield, Kentucky Continues!
First Congregational Church of Webster Groves United Church of Christ (FCCWG), a progressive Christian church, kicked off its latest fundraiser…Mission Rebuild Mayfield, Kentucky on Thursday, March 10th—International Day of Awesomeness. On this date, we as a church chose to participate in a remarkable thing, to be awesome! We also encouraged the entire St. Louis community to join in with us so we could all celebrate AWESOMENESS for Mayfield.
You might be thinking to yourself, wow, that’s a lofty goal. Someone at FCCWG has big ideas. Yup, that someone is Rod Cooper. Rod, in his words, is just a boy from Kentucky who grew up on a small farm. After the devasting tornadoes of December 10, 2021, Rod knew he wanted to help. But he couldn’t do it alone and he really didn’t know where to start.
Rod reached out to church friends to figure out how the church could do a fundraiser. He and seven others formed a Tornado Relief Committee. Each one of these committee members has a talent that could be beneficial for the Mission Fundraiser.
Prior to the fundraiser, four of the committee members took a trip to Mayfield, to meet with community members and take a tour of the city. Committee member and photographer Phil Shoulberg took hundreds of amazing photos. Rev. Janice Barnes said that while touring the city the committee “saw enormous piles of rubble on every street corner. In the downtown, not one civic building had been untouched. Historic brick buildings had towers and cupolas sheared off. Windows had been blown out and were now boarded up. Our hosts often warned us about glass that was underfoot. It was difficult to imagine what it must have been like to hear the tornado roar through their town, nine city blocks wide and 1.3 miles long.”
Mayfield’s residents are committed to rebuilding and bringing back their community more robust and viable than ever.
- Close to 12,000 people call Mayfield home.
- Twenty-four hundred structures were destroyed or damaged.
- Eight hundred families were displaced.
- Seventeen churches, centers of hope and faith for many, are no longer standing.
- All the buildings that housed government agencies and offices were destroyed, complicating communications, and planning for rebuilding.
The official Mayfield community foundation established for the rebuilding efforts is the Mayfield Long-Term Recovery Group (LTRG), a 501c3. Your monetary gifts, sent directly to Mayfield, Kentucky, will aid them in bringing the city back from the very edge of total disaster to renewal and new life.
Mail your tax-deductible donations to:
Community Foundation of West Kentucky
Attn: Mayfield DRS
PO Box 7
Paducah, KY 42002
(Make your check payable to Community Foundation of West Kentucky
In the Check Memo spot, please insert the following: CFWK-STL.)
Click here to make an online donation via PayPal.
Speak with your family, your friends, neighbors, church mission boards, community support boards about how you might also be AWESOME in support of Mayfield, Kentucky, and its commitment to rising from rubble to renewal. It is the hope of the First Congregational Church of Webster Groves that together, we as the St. Louis Region will be able to assist those in need in Mayfield. Please consider being truly AWESOME through your participation in this work and Mission!
For more information on FCCWG’s Mission Rebuild benefiting Mayfield, Kentucky, please E-mail Kristy Barton at [email protected] .
Signed in Grace and Peace,
Rev. David A. Denoon
FCCWG Mayfield, Kentucky, Tornado Relief Committee:
Co-Chairs Rod Cooper and Kristy Barton; Reverend Jan Barnes; Phil Shoulberg; Mark Edwards; Tom Waltz; Bob Hill; and Charlie Brader
For a printable version of this letter, click here for a pdf.