UMCOR Sager Brown Celebrates 140 Years of Ministry
By Susan J. Meister
This year UMCOR Sager Brown celebrates the 140th anniversary of the wide-ranging ministry that has taken place on the campus. The United Methodist connection is invited to participate in this important anniversary by continued prayer for the work of UMCOR and by collecting supplies to send to the Depot.
A local celebration and Open House will be held on Saturday, April 21 in Baldwin, La. A special invitation has been issued to former students of the Sager Brown Home and Godman School. Visitors and guests will be invited to tour the buildings and Depot, and visit with UMCOR Sager Brown staff. Staff and children of the newly opened Boys & Girls Club, Baldwin unit, will also be on hand.
The UMCOR Sager Brown Depot receives, verifies, packages, stores and ships relief supplies throughout the world. In 2006, nearly $8 million dollars worth of goods and materials were shipped with the help of 3073 volunteers, the most ever to visit the site. Supplies include health kits, flood buckets, sewing kits, school bags, layette kits and more.
The receiving and shipping of relief supplies is the most recent use of the Sager Brown campus, which began in 1867 as an orphanage to serve African-American children orphaned by the Civil War. In the early 1900's, Dr. W.D. Godman formed a student choir, "The Jubilee Singers," who toured the northeastern US to raise money. Mrs. Addie Sager and Mrs. C.W. Brown, who learned about the financial need at a concert in the North Central New York Methodist Conference, purchased the school and gave it to the Women's Home Mission Society (the forerunner of the Women's Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church). The Sager Brown Home and Godman School closed in 1978.
When Hurricane Andrew roared through Louisiana in 1992, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) brought volunteers and supplies to the area, and staged their operations at Sager Brown. In 1994, construction began on the UMCOR Depot, which was opened in 1996.
Volunteers from throughout the world come to UMCOR Sager Brown to help with the processing of relief supplies. In addition, volunteers work on community housing projects in the Baldwin/St. Mary's Parish area. A senior food program is administered from the site, and the Boys & Girls Club, Baldwin Unit, opened in February 2007, the only after-school program in Baldwin.
Susan Meister is Gulf Coast communications consultant for UMCOR.
