Be a sermon in your shoes” is a great way to describe the congregation of Carmichaels Methodist Church. The classic old brick lets you know that Methodists have been doing good work here for over 100 years. But these days, it’s in the building that was once Union Supply Company Store for US Steel behind the church, where these parishioners roll up their sleeves and love their neighbors, just like the Good Book says. Talk about loaves of bread!
Tables by the front door were stacked high with rolls, loaves, buns, croissants, you name it, when I stopped by on the second Thursday of July to see Good Samaritans in action, filling boxes for the Cumberland Township Food Pantry.
Terri Cartier coordinates this monthly event for healthy eats for those on a tight budget. “I’m on the board of Corner Cupboard, Food Bank,” she tells me. “Last month we served 240 families here, this month 175. It usually drops in the summer – people have their own gardens. But it picks up again in the fall.”
It’s a little after 10 a.m. and most of the boxes and bags of fresh produce, canned goods, bread and whatnots have been given out. A row of boxes crowned with vine-ripened tomatoes, fresh mushrooms and green beans, and a roll of paper towels line a back wall. They wait to be taken to those who couldn’t make it. Empty boxes whizz through the air as teens from Carmichaels High School toss them hand to hand and out the side door to be broken down and recycled.
“We come in on Wednesday to help set up too,” ninth grader Isaiah Currey tells me later as he helps Terri load up her brother Bill Piper’s truck with all those leftover donated loaves. Bill, a retired Cumberland miner, will take them around the township to families who don’t sign up for the pantry but appreciate something extra.
Terri remembers it was her mother, Marie Piper, who got her kids involved with helping neighbors going through the hard times of layoffs and injuries in a coal mining town. “She’d have us go at night to neighbors’ houses, leave food and a gallon of milk, ring the doorbell and run!”
When Terri got involved with the pantry with her mother in 1982, it was at Community Chapel of Carmichaels. She took over pantry operations when it moved to her church in 1984, and she remembers finding two cans of vegetables left in the pantry stockpile and praying for guidance.
Today, surrounded by over 30 volunteers and a bounty of donations coming in from the Corner Cupboard Food Bank and its growing network of corporate supporters, including the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank, it appears her prayers have been answered.
What other community services do these hard working volunteers provide? Cartier and the mission group have recently returned from their yearly Casa Aleluya mission to San Bartolome, Guatemala. “We work with a children’s home where the children are political refugees,” along with picking out a different remote village with each visit to distribute Gideon’s Bible in Spanish. Carole Wheeler is the head of the mission group and, along with husband Carl, host bible study every other week in their home. “Our new men’s prayer group meets for breakfast every second Tuesday and we have a youth group and youth ministry.”
The Hometown Heroes Military Banners going up around Carmichaels is a project of The Carmichaels Women’s Civic Club. Members hold their meetings here at the company store, now the church fellowship hall, as do scout groups, AA and the “Church Ladies” who plan other yearly outreaches including fundraisers for Christmas and back to school giveaways. The All Things Christmas Tree Extravaganza is held there in December to raise funds for the pantry.
When I was ready to leave, I went through a side door into the Acts Shop, the church thrift store that’s open six days a week, M-F 9:30-3:30pm, Sat 10am–2pm. No one remembers when the shop opened. “I’ve belonged to the church for 35 years and it was open when I got here,” Cartier said, laughing. “This building used to be a company store for coal miners, so maybe it never closed!”
During the fall, preschool is avilable. Fmi, call Nikki Baker at the church office M-F 8:30am-12:30pm. If you think this church sounds pretty cool, stop by some Sunday.