The Northern Illinois Conference Board of Global Ministries challenged each district to bring school supplies to Annual Conference this year such as pencils, rulers and sharpeners (CUMC supplied 72 boxes of 24 crayons for this project). The collection will support the UMCOR depository for the Midwest area, the Midwest Mission Distribution Center (MMDC) in Chatham, Illinois to put together school supply kits.  This year, each district went above and beyond donating 100% and more of the items requested. 
This will allow volunteers at the MMDC to assemble nearly 1,000 school kits with the items that we donated at Annual Conference. Because each district gave 100% of their challenge item, the real winners in our mission challenge are the children who cannot afford basic school supplies to begin their education this fall. Your gifts allow a child to participate fully in classroom learning. Click here to read more….