In 2021, a nurse named Ginny administered monoclonal antibodies to Andrew Darden, minister of Steeles Chapel Christian Church in Corbin, Kentucky. Darden, a diabetic and a cancer survivor, had contracted COVID-19 and was at particularly high risk.
A few months later, Darden was able to thank Ginny in person as he offered her a box lunch. The opportunity came when Steeles Chapel, along with four other small local churches, provided lunch to more than 700 health-care workers at Baptist Health Corbin hospital.
The idea for the outreach came when Tom Cassidy, treasurer of West Corbin Christian Church, heard about a similar outreach in a nearby city. After seeing the toll the pandemic had taken on medical workers, he wished his own church could replicate the outreach, but they didn’t have the resources to take it on alone.
That’s when Eddie Hammond, minister of West Corbin Christian, reached out to four other churches to see if they could pool their resources. They all said yes. Each church gave about $1,000 toward purchasing the meals, and most churches sent volunteers to set up and serve the day of the lunch.
“The [hospital] employees thanked us and said they really appreciated us showing interest in them,” Cassidy says.
The outreach, which Hammond says they hope to make an annual event, highlighted how much more the church can do when it works together.
“When we come together as the body of Christ, we can accomplish a whole lot more than we can separately, particularly when it comes to small churches,” he says. “God works in a mighty way when we are together, when we show unity and when we’re simply being the hands and feet of Jesus.”