Our apportionment contributions provide hope, making a difference in our communities and the world in which God places us to serve. Look at the example offered by UMOM New Day Centers in Phoenix, an urban ministry we support together. This past month, UMOM dedicated a new women’s center called, Diane & Bruce Halle Foundation Women’s Center. It is the first shelter in Maricopa County operated expressly for single women experiencing homelessness.
Photos courtesy of UMOM
For the past 20 years, homeless women were cared for at the Watkins Emergency Shelter near downtown Phoenix. There, they sleep on cots in a cavernous open room. Every morning, up to 130 women compete to use 30 showers and are required to stay away from the shelter between 7:00 AM and 3:00 PM. They receive only one meal each day and live with a near-constant threat of violence.
The new Halle Women’s Center is located on the site of a former motel, refurbished to create a safe, secure, temporary home for women rebuilding their lives. Because the women now stay on-campus during the day, it is much easier to connect them to the services they need to move from homelessness to permanent housing.
Rather than share space with more than 100 other women, the Halle Center houses 2-3 women in a room equipped with a private bath. Each room has an emergency pull cord to summon assistance. The Center is staffed 24/7, with systems and protocols in place to further ensure the safety of every client.
Each woman receives three meals a day, prepared in the onsite commercial kitchen, and has access to laundry facilities as well as a locked space to store personal belongings. Approximately 130 women can live up to 120 days in the Center, with 2 beds always reserved for those transported to the facility by the first responder.
UMOM is truly serving those in need. Be proud of your apportionment support for this ministry and all the other urban ministries in our Conference. The lives your support is impacting is what’s important. But for those who want numbers, we’ve prepared the summary report.
Click here to see our year-to-date apportionment contributions through July.
For the first seven months of 2017, our churches contributed 46.8% of their apportionments. As you can see from the detailed report, this was 0.6% above last year and 0.1% above our average apportionment contributions through July for the last ten years. The South, East, and West districts all show improvement from last year, while the North District is down. 3 churches have not yet been able to make any apportionment contributions for 2017. Based on results for the first 7 months of this year, we currently project an overall year-end apportionment contribution percentage of 86%-88%.
Please do all that you can to help our churches and our ministries continue to change lives by contributing towards apportionments as fully as possible in the next five months of 2017.
Thank you all for your commitment; it truly provides the financial stability for our connectional programs to work.
Randy Bowman, Conference Treasurer
Click here to download the July 2017 Apportionments Status Report.
