ADVENTIST COMMUNITY SERVICES

Adventist Community Services

By Marshall Gonzales, ACS Director

You don’t know how many lives you have saved,” a doctor shared with me after we distributed N95 masks to first responders and medical personal.

As soon as COVID-19 raised its ugly head, we were able to send more than 2,000 N95 masks to the Seventh-day Adventist hospital in Hong Kong. We also helped various county emergency management directors, other nonprofit agencies and our churches around Texas with masks and hand sanitizer.

At the same time, many of our churches stepped up their efforts to fill the ever-growing need for food in their communities by setting up drive-through food pantries.

We were able to provide food pantry organizers with masks, hand sanitizer and gloves to protect their volunteers in addition to giving more than $35,000 in grant money to help them purchase food and other items needed to serve their communities.

During 2019 and 2020, we continued to deal with other disasters, such as an earthquake in Puerto Rico; floods in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas; tornadoes in Texas and Louisiana and hurricanes in Louisiana.

Clean-up buckets, hygiene kits, clothes and many other items were given to each area to help survivors get back to as normal a life as possible.

Clothes were sent to help the immigrants who were coming into south Texas, and aid was given to homeowners in Refugio, Texas, as the long-term recovery from Hurricane Harvey continued.

In 2019, we were able to present training in various churches and assist ten churches with community outreach where clothes, diapers, hygiene kits and other items were given to those in need.

One young man came to one of these events and was able to get clothes he needed because he was going to have a job interview the following Monday. He shouted loudly for everyone to hear, “There is a God!” He shared with us how the day before he had been praying for clothes he could wear to the interview, and God had answered his prayer.

We thank God for His goodness towards us, and we want to thank you for your support and financial donations. Without your help, without your support, we would not be able to touch and change so many lives.

2020 Stats

$87,000 grant money given to churches

$1,200,000 given out in clothing, personal protective equipment, clean-up buckets, etc.

2,054 volunteer hours | We appreciate our regular volunteers from Keene Adventist Elementary School, Southwestern Adventist University Honor Students and Texas Conference employees.

Ways to Give

In your tithe envelope or through AdventistGiving.org or app TX Adventist Community Services, TX ACS - Disaster Buckets or TX ACS - Ingathering.

Text Bucket to 41444

Mail a check to: Texas ACS PO Box 35 Keene, TX 76059

Staff

Marshall Gonzales, Director

Julie Gonzales, Associate Director

Mario Escobar, Depot Coordinator