Clients in crisis mode can turn to LCM

This is the sixth in a series of articles profiling charities that will benefit from the Smith Mountain Lake Charity Home Tour, which will be held Oct. 11-13.

You got a good job right out of high school, but after 10 years, you were laid off or your hours were reduced. You need help feeding and clothing your growing family until you can get a new job. Or your elderly father has just died and your mother cannot manage her home on her income only. You need time to develop a new plan for her, but she needs food and help with her heating bill right now.

Where do you turn for help? For many needy people in Franklin, Bedford and Pittsylvania counties, the answer is Lake Christian Ministries.

For 20 years, LCM has been supporting people whose resources are not sufficient to provide a healthy level of nutrition or other life-sustaining essentials such as warm clothing for the winter, fuel for heating, minimal furnishings and home appliances. LCM helped more than 4,000 families and individuals in crisis last year. About half were younger than 18 or older than 60.

Several clients who have received help have praised the organization. One said LCM provided good, nutritious meals for her family that they would not have been able to buy otherwise. Another praised LCM for enabling her to rear her four great-grandchildren instead of turning them over to foster parents or adoption. Another, the wife of a disabled veteran, said she and her family could not have survived without the assistance LCM provided.

Here is how it works: Those seeking food assistance or financial aid are asked to provide information and meet with counselors. If aid is approved, the clients are eligible to receive food from the pantry; clothing; certain household items; and payment of their housing, fuel, electricity, medical and other bills.

Each qualified family or individual is allowed to get food supplies from the pantry once a month up to two meals a day for five days for each family member. Other services that are provided include vision screening and denture programs; affordable auto loans; GED classes; and training in financial management. In addition, LCM provides school supplies to children identified by the schools as needing assistance and special baskets of food during three holidays.

Formed in 1992 by representatives from area churches, LCM is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization with no paid staff. It is fully dependent on volunteers to carry out its programs. In 2012, more than 200 volunteers worked more than 22,500 hours to provide the needy with services.

The 2012 budget for LCM, housed in a recently remodeled warehouse in Old Moneta, was $327,000, most of which went to pay for the food. The Rotary Club of Smith Mountain Lake, in partnership with Booker T. Washington National Monument and the Franklin County Master Gardeners, manages a large garden that supplied more than 5,000 pounds of fresh vegetables to the pantry for distribution.

LCM volunteers are eager to work with New Tomorrow, a program developed by former career and lifestyle counselors Josselyn Gregory, Barbara Brush and Fred and Bev Waddell. It is designed to help selected clients out of poverty and into financial self-sufficiency. A pilot program was initiated on June 10 and is showing encouraging results.

LCM is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. until noon and on the last Tuesday of each month from 5 until 7 p.m.

For more information about LCM, call 297-3214 or visit www.lcm-moneta.org.

For more information about the SML Charity Home Tour, www.smlcharityhometour.com.

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