Mother’s Day Offering
There is one Sunday a year in the month of May that the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church sets aside as a sanctioned offering of the conference for UMRH. The Sunday is Mother’s Day and every May since 1955 the conference has encouraged its churches to participate in this offering.
Purpose
The Mother’s Day Offering supports our Benevolent Care Annual Fund and provides financial and personal resources for residents who, through no fault of their own, can no longer fully pay for their care. These residents are at Cypress Glen in Greenville, Wesley Pines in Lumberton, and Croasdaile Village in Durham.
Residents who benefit from this fund are still living independently or in assisted living and are not yet eligible for any government subsidies. In many cases they have no means of support and often no family.
By supporting this fund you can make a difference in the lives of these residents.
All gifts are appreciated and will help. These gifts are also tax deductible. Remember, we all will be growing old and perhaps one day, you too will need the help of others.
Donations
Personal gifts, as well as gifts from congregations, are accepted. All gifts are tax-deductible to the full extent as allowed by law. When donating, please include your church and location. The funds are allocated to each community depending on their benevolent needs.
Please note on the memo line of your check: Mother’s Day Offering
You may mail your gift to:
N.C. Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church
Mother’s Day Offering
Conference Treasurer (Diana Hunter)
P. O. Box 890202
Charlotte, NC 28289-0202
OR directly to us at:
UMRH Foundation,
2600 Croasdaile Farm Parkway, Ste. A-500
Durham, NC 27705
Benevolence Testimonial
In 2014, this resident turned 103 years old. When she came to Methodist Retirement Community in Durham in 1973, she never expected to live this long. She remembers driving up to the front door and meeting the administrators and saying, “I have come to live here.” She had come from New York and had been a successful career woman, and was and still is a Methodist.
When this resident was in her late eighties, her funds began to dwindle and by the time she had reached 90 years old, she had run out of funds. For the last 24 years, this resident has been able to live at our Croasdaile Village community because people have given to the Mother’s Day Offering to support people such as her.
Additional Testimonials
UMRH provides financial aid to residents who no longer have the resources to fully pay for the services and care provided to them. In order to gain a better understanding of this ministry, consider one resident recipient of benevolence support whom we will call Mary Jane.
She has a medical condition that has made her disabled and unable to care for herself. She has lived in a room at one of the UMRH healthcare centers for more than twenty-three years. Although Mary Jane has no biological family, she does have a very close family who love her dearly. That family is the staff of the healthcare center. Her small income and UMRH benevolence support cover the cost of her care.
The following words from the daughter of a UM pastor help to emphasize the importance of benevolence support provided by UMRH:
“My parents gave their lives to the United Methodist Church, but my father never made a salary of more than five thousand dollars a year (plus travel and housing allowance). They lived their lives in homes that belonged to other people and never had a home of their own. They helped to build new churches and parsonages, but they never owned so much as a square inch of property themselves. They never had the resources to invest for a comfortable retirement and the infirmities of old age. So, I thank God for those people in the United Methodist Church who have given their monetary gifts so that my mother, and others like her, can live their final days in comfort and dignity, surrounded by people they know and love.
“This is the kind of work our benevolent funds do. They work for people and causes beyond [the] local church. I am proud to be a United Methodist, and one of the reasons is that we care for those persons whose faces we cannot always see but whom we know God loves.”