Mennonite Central Committee’s (MCC) Philadelphia office, in partnership with Kingdom Builders Anabaptist Network of Greater Philadelphia, has launched a new renovation and construction project this month for the various Anabaptist churches and ministries in Philadelphia.
Dan Umstead, a Spring City, Pa., resident and recent Eastern University graduate, will serve the Kingdom Builders and MCC Philadelphia office for the next two years as their building project coordinator. Dan is an experienced volunteer construction team leader and jobsite foreman. He has worked in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and in the Dominican Republic.
J. Fred Kauffman, MCC Philadelphia Program Coordinator, explained that this building project started very quickly beginning with a discussion of the needs of many churches and ministries in Philadelphia and an inquiry on available positions with MCC from Dan. “In a period of about a month we went from nothing to enough work to say let’s go,” said Fred.
Along with immediately taking on the role of building caretaker at Franconia Conference Related Ministry Philadelphia Mennonite High School (PMHS), Dan is also scheduled to work on renovating Philadelphia Praise Center’s basement to add a kitchen, renovating Oxford Circle Mennonite Church’s new building, renovating Vietnamese Mennonite Church’s fourth floor, helping a newly developing Ethiopean church purchase and renovate a building for their congregation and working with several city-based Anabaptist community ministries to assist in renovating the homes of community members in need.
In addition Dan will solicte and coordinate volunteer groups to assist him in the renovation and construction projects. He is making a wide appeal to all local church groups, including youth groups on up to older groups, to come and spend a week or so with him in Philadelphia building and renovating in these projects. In the future Dan will also be holding construction and home improvement workshops open to all insterested and a Friday Elective Service Learning class for PMHS.
The congregations employing Dan have already committed funds toward the project and Fred was very excited to note that Kingdom Builders and MCC Philadelphia has already received more than half of the money needed to fund this initiative. The project’s biggest needs now are tools, a pick-up truck and volunteers.
For more information on contibuting to this project or volunteering contact Dan Umstead at dumstead@mcc.org or 610-574-2959.
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