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Sharing a generous gift, New Life United Methodist Church has donated $100,000 to Project HOPE for the purchase of a mobile medical unit to serve the community's homeless population.
The Rev. Dr. Earnest Watkins, pastor of the Wheeling Island church, made the presentation Monday. Project HOPE (Homeless Outreach Partnership Effort) is the street medicine program of the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department. The donation represents part of a large bequest which the church recent received.
The small congregation -- "having been a homeless church for a while" -- recognized the homeless population's needs, he said. "We are called as Christians to take care of the sick and the needy. This is a needy population with special needs."
The pastor said the donation represents "part of the total picture of how we have been blessed and the church's desire to be a part of cutting-edge activities/ministries. We are becoming partners in ministry with Project HOPE, first financially and then we hope to provide some clergy support in the treatment rounds that they provide."
Crystal Bauer, director of Project HOPE, said the large gift is "pretty surreal." She added, "I think it's divine intervention."
Dr. William Mercer, county health officer, said, "It's going to be a tremendous asset."
Bauer said the health department plans to purchase a 23-foot mobile medical unit costing $135,000. A gift of $50,000 from another fund and private donations of $6,000 will cover the balance of the purchase price and allow them to buy other equipment, such as wall-mounted diagnostic tools, for the unit, she said.
The new unit will have a truck front and will feature an examination area, generator and canopy. The unit will have enough space for personnel to conduct examinations and perform small surgical procedures, she said.
Project HOPE's teams of medical volunteers will take the mobile unit on weekly street rounds to homeless encampments and shelters.
"We see a lot of wounds on people sleeping outside," where living situations are not conducive to performing exams, Bauer said. With the unit, medical personnel will be able to take homeless patients "into a clinical setting to provide clinical care," she said.
Currently, Project HOPE's teams visit homeless encampments and shelters on Friday nights. When the Winter Freeze Shelter in East Wheeling closes for the season on March 15, the rounds will return to a Tuesday night schedule.
During the daytime, the health department can use the mobile medical unit for vaccination clinics, needle exchanges and disaster relief in the community, Mercer said.
"This shows what the community can do to help," Mercer said. "We can be a model for other counties in the state."
Watkins, who has served in Wheeling for eight years, said, "This was part of God's plan for this community. I am happy, actually thrilled, to be a part of it, doing some good to a community that needs a lot of good."
New Life United Methodist Church "inherited a portfolio of extravagant generosity and wanted to be extravagant in being generous" to other entities in the community, Watkins said. The church also plans to donate $86,000 in proceeds from the bequest to other churches, ministries and service providers.
In mid-2018, New Life received a portfolio trust fund from the estate of Gertrude Hyer, who died in the 1990s and was a member of the former Thomson United Methodist Church. Hyer's will stipulated that upon the death of her last heir, the portfolio would be given to Thomson, Watkins said. However, Thomson no longer exists; it and three other Methodist churches in Wheeling merged to form New Life several years ago.