The youth in Summerland are fighting poverty in Mozambique, and they’re doing it with apple pies.
In recent years, the young people of Summerland Baptist Church have made and sold apple pies in order to fund their mission trips to Mexico and Grenada. Even though there is no youth mission trip planned for this coming year, they decided to make the pies anyway and donate the funds to Mercy Tech Mission.
Mercy Tech is a Summerland-based non-profit group that teaches trades and skills in Africa.
“I am excited about the prospect of the youth of Summerland participating in a fundraiser that doesn’t necessary benefit them but rather their global community,” said Mikel Laurie, youth pastor at Summerland Baptist Church.
“We have done so many fundraisers for our own trips in the past, and now we can bless someone else.”
On Saturday morning, Dec. 1, volunteers of all ages met in the gymnasium of Summerland Baptist Church to make more than 500 freezer-ready pies, all pre-sold in the weeks previous.
The apples were donated by local orchardist Dave Gartrell, who has provided fruit for these fund-raising events many times in the past.
Rick Cogbill, director and founder of Mercy Tech Mission, is amazed at the contribution the youth are making.
“Being willing to do a fund-raiser for something they are not directly involved in really shows the depth and maturity of our young people. We are learning to become a global community, and this is an example to all of us to think of others before ourselves,” he said.
Mercy Tech Mission is committed to fighting poverty world-wide by taking trades-training to developing countries, where education and training are difficult to obtain. “We depend on fund-raising efforts such as this,” says Cogbill.
“Our motto at Mercy Tech is ‘Changing Lives, One Skill at a Time,” and the Summerland youth are helping us do this in a very practical way.”
Mercy Tech Mission is returning to Mozambique in March 2013 to continue work on their automotive shop training centre, and the funds raised by the pie sales will go towards that trip.
More information can be found at www.mercytechmission.com or on the Summerland Baptist Church website at www.summerlandbaptist.ca.
