Red Bird Mission and Clinic have been providing ministries in the Appalachian Mountains since 1921. Today the need remains critical in this isolated, rural distressed area. Chronic poverty, lack of jobs, poor housing, and rugged mountainous terrain provide obstacles to a fuller life for the residents of this area. Red Bird Mission and Clinic helps to meet these needs through assistance in five areas: Education, Health and Wellness, Community Outreach, Economic Opportunity, and Community Housing Improvement.

Since the 1960’s, volunteers from the Hartsville District have traveled annually to the hills of Kentucky to address the housing needs of families as a part of the Red Bird Mission effort.  First Methodist has sent a team each year since 2001 for a week of repairing homes and nuturing souls.  These volunteers have built numerous wheelchair ramps, put windows in a trailer, added rooms to a house, re-roofed homes, put a roof on an old school bus for a woman living there and many more such improvements.  The team, always accompanied by volunteers from other churches, stay in cabins and eat in a dining hall.  The team pays their own way but accepts donations to defray the costs of materials used for the projects.

Volunteers are welcome and need not have professional construction skills.  Call the church office (537-7002) for more information.

Contributed in part by Pal Moore