WS Chronicle

Photo by Timothy Ramsey

 BY TIMOTHY RAMSEY 

THE CHRONICLE

In the midst of the holiday season comes the drop in temperature, which means there are many individuals who need assistance for clothing and shoes to bear the frigid winter days and nights.

Messiah Community Christian Church is well aware of the needs and did something to help.

On Sunday, Nov. 20, Messiah held its “I am Somebody Special” service, during which the church supplied clothes, hats, scarves, and shoes to the less fortunate.  Senior pastor the Rev. Louis Threatt expressed to his congregation weeks before that he wanted quality clothing and shoes to be donated. They happily complied.

The church, at 2651 Belews Creek Road in Winston-Salem, accumulated so many items that they have subsequently opened their doors every Sunday since then to welcome the less fortunate to continue to look through items they may need. Threatt says “I am Somebody Special” is derived out of the gospel and wants people to know that everyone is important no matter their circumstances.

“We looked at the Scripture, and being able to look at Matthew, we thought how we could support the community and beyond,” said Threatt.  “During this season following Thanksgiving, people are hungry and they need some clothes for winter.  So anything we could provide for the community we brought it here and made it available to them.”

Threatt says they initially held this event in 2014 and when they decided to bring it back for this year, he wanted to make it bigger and better than before.  He says as a man of God, it’s a blessing for him to be able to help someone else out.

He says no matter how someone may look outwardly, people are struggling on the inside.  He said that there are things in his closet that he had too much of and for some they are in need of the basics so he was happy to help where he could.

Threatt continued by saying, “it feels good to see people come in to donate and going beyond themselves and say I have extra stuff but I want to be able to help somebody else out.  It also is good that people can come in and say ‘hey I do need something’ and being able to provide that for them and let somebody know we were thinking about them is very important to us.”

Threatt concluded by saying that it made him feel really great by seeing people able to walk out of the church with bags of items they needed and to see the sincere thanks on their faces.  He says in the future he would like to expand the event by having medical, dental and financial advisers all under one roof.

The church will open its doors after the Sunday services until the clothing and shoes have found homes.