Recap of the United Methodist Childrens Home

The Florida United Methodist Children's Home (FUMCH) is a mission that's special to the hearts of many Methodists. Our church's representative is Eddie Coppage. That means Eddie stays connected with the home and how they need support. Val and Eddie take so much joy in going to visit the home and taking our donations.

The UM Children's Home has two campuses that include residential homes, therapeutic groups, foster care, and emergency shelters. They also provide independent living assistance and a child care center.

Once a quarter, when it's a 5th Sunday, we take up a special offering that goes directly to FUMCH. This year, we received $6,365 in cash donations. 100% of those funds goes to the Children's Home to help with the day-to-day expenses. Our conference's home was established in 1908, which is also when churches started the 5th Sunday offering.

This Year in July, we chose to focus on collecting school supplies instead of funds because the FUMCH said that was what they needed. More than 240 items were collected, which I would estimate at around $500 worth of school supplies.

At Christmas, the Children's Home requests that we collect gift cards, which are given to the house parents. These are due by the end of November. The house parents then go Christmas shopping for the children in their care. They also use restaurant cards to take them out to dinner to celebrate the holiday. We collected a total of $1,000 in gift cards. Ava went with Eddie and Val to deliver the gift cards this year, and made a special appearance in the Facebook post!

That brings us to a total of around $7,865 donated to the United Methodist Children's Home this year, making it our largest missions outreach!

The Florida United Methodist Children's Home (August 8): Our wonderful friends at Fleming Island UMC collected a lot of Back To School items for our children, as well as a sizable check! This will certainly help to make sure the children have all they need to start the new year.

The Florida United Methodist Children's Home (December 6): Valerie & Eddie Coppage from Fleming Island UMC brought by gift cards for Christmas that were donated by the congregation. They were accompanied by their granddaughter, Ava (the little one on the right). Isn't she a cutie?!? They were greeted here at the Children's Home by our Director of Church Relations, Rev. Brian Carr (the tall one on the left).