|Photo by Derek Redd| Volunteers help distribute food and other items to those in need Saturday at the Bethlehem Apostolic Temple's annual Easter giveaway.

WHEELING — For decades, Bishop Darrell Cummings of Wheeling’s Bethlehem Apostolic Temple has spent many a holiday fulfilling a promise he made to God a long time ago.

There was a point in his younger days where, he said, he couldn’t afford to provide for his family, so in prayer, he told God that, if He helped him through, Cummings would work from then on making sure others would not feel the same pressures. So he was ready with open arms Saturday morning to welcome those in need to the basement of the North Wheeling Dream Center for an Easter giveaway, supplying hundreds with food, hygiene products, clothes and more.

“I said, ‘God, if you help me feed my family … I would pay it forward for the rest of my life,'” he said. “And that’s what I’ve been trying to do.”

The line at the basement entrance stretched to the street before the doors opened. Cummings said one person had been in the parking lot in their car at 5 p.m. Friday to be at the front of the line. He told the person that wasn’t necessary, but wasn’t sure if they had gone home and returned Saturday or stayed overnight.

When people started filing through the line, volunteers packed boxes of food — ham, canned goods, macaroni and cheese, desserts and fresh fruits and vegetables.

They also were able to select hygiene products, new and donated clothes and shoes and even bicycles.

Cummings said funding cuts had reduced the amount of food they were able to provide Saturday – he said they were reciting a prayer of “two fish and five loaves of bread” and stretching supplies the best they could – but the church was able to send 395 people and more than 115 families home with an Easter meal and more.

The event didn’t just do good for those in line; it did the same for those volunteering. Kim Harmon was volunteering that morning with her daughter, Wheeling Park High School senior Abby Harmon. The family has been helping out with the food distribution since Abby and her siblings were in grade school, Kim Harmon said.

“We just wanted to help, to give back to do something,” she said. “There’s so much that needs to be done and sometimes there’s just not enough people to help.

“Jesus came for all of us,” Kim Harmon continued, “the poor, the rich, everybody. We’re not just here to consume. We’re here to help others.”

Abby Harmon said being of service on mornings like Saturday is all she knows.

“It has made me have a better look at stuff,” she said. “I always try to give back in certain ways. I see how other people aren’t as fortunate and I try to do what I can.”

Cummings said the volunteers are his “angels on Earth,” and that he couldn’t do what he does every year without their help. It also shows the level of compassion and spirit of service found in the Ohio Valley.

“To God be the glory,” Cummings said. “It’s none of my own. But the other thing is, to the community be the glory, because the community does come together. Through the ebbs and flows, they try to make up the difference.

“I feel God has blessed me,” he added. “I’m extremely blessed beyond measure. The Ohio Valley has some of the best people in the world.”