During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jubilee Ministries International City Church, in Partnership with the Christian Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania (C.C.C.W.P.) served the City of New Castle via several initiatives through the Nourishing Other’s Wellbeing (N.O.W) Project.
The N.O.W. Project began with a dream given to Dr. Mark Kauffman over 10 years ago. Amid crisis, God birthed this dream and commissioned Jubilee Ministries International City Church to serve the city of New Castle.
Flowers brighten the hardest of days!
In response to the pandemic, in the middle of March 2020, Drs. Mark & Jill Kauffman chose to bless the City of New Castle through the “Make your Day Project.” In Partnership with Butz Flowers, Gifts & Home Décor, the N.O.W. Project gave every resident in our seven local nursing homes and every nurse’s station in our local hospital a fresh bouquet of flowers.
Once completed over 500 bouquets had been given out. As the crisis continued, they saw the sacrifice of our first responders as they served on the front lines. Through the N.O. W. Project our local Fire & Police Departments were honored with gift cards to local restaurants and breakfast was served to our local E.M.S. providers.
Dr. Kauffman then felt we needed to bless the families in our community that had children who were closed-up in the house with nothing to do.
They’re not playing around…
So, the next initiative, the “Build the Family Project,” was designed to provide families a way to spend quality time together during this time of quarantine. When the call went out, numerous donations were received. Local family-owned toy stores, local department stores, and many community shops got on board with the N.O.W. Project and provided large discounts making it possible to purchase an assortment of board games. Through this initiative, we were able to gift 420 families in our local housing projects with family board games, such as Monopoly, Yahtzee, Scrabble, and much more.
Feeding thousands!
During this time, Dr. Kauffman became aware of the food insecurity that existed in our community due to the high unemployment brought on by the closing of businesses, and in like manner, we responded again. The N.O.W Project and the C.C.C.W.P. purchased a tractor-trailer of food boxes from Blessings of Hope to disburse to families in need within our city. This was the beginning of our mass food distributions to our community.
Our first distributions were held at Cascade Park. Each week we showed up with truckloads of food and milk to give to our community members in need. This initiative has grown immensely. We continue to respond to the food insecurity of many residents in our city through the Farmers to Families grants and multiple divine connections. We are currently distributing over 76,800 lbs. of produce, over 90,000 lbs. of milk, over 60,000 lbs. of dry goods, over 60,000 lbs. of assorted dairy products, up to 8,000 individual frozen meals monthly to over 1000 families in our region.
In July, we are scheduled for two mass distributions; July 8th and July 22nd. In Partnership with the Pittsburgh Steelers wives, we will receive a tractor-trailer load of food from Convoy of Hope on July 22nd in addition to our current supply.
None of this would be possible without our amazing N.O.W. Project Team of volunteers. Our volunteers are comprised of leaders from Jubilee Ministries International City Church, teens, young adults, intercessory prayer volunteers, community pastors, local police, and volunteer firemen.
This ministry will continue throughout 2020 and far beyond the current crisis. It is impacting New Castle and the region in multiple ways.
Pastors and churches are coming together in unity like never before. Local police departments, fire departments, and community social service agencies, such as Lawrence County Community Action Partnership (L.C.C.A.P.), along with multiple local businesses, are all combining forces to build and restore New Castle. G