For a Church that began as a mission itself, McLeod holds true to those roots today. With congregational support, McLeod supports a number of missions ranging from local organization assistance to helping some of the poorest on Earth with wells, livestock, and more. Central to the efforts of our members is the emphasis of doing for those in need.
McLeod supports the ongoing efforts of many different organizations, including:
- Monthly Shut-in Take Out Meals – Ongoing McLeod Mission
- The last Saturday of each month, a team of members from McLeod dedicate time, effort, and food to prepare meals for people in the community that are shut-ins. This interaction allows the person receiving the meal to have a prepared meal delivered hot that includes a main dish, a vegetable, a bread, and a beverage. Members have routes to deliver the meals and share in fellowship and conversation with the shut-ins. If you’d like to become a part of this ministry, please contact the Church office.
- Christmas Project – Seasonal McLeod Mission
- McLeod raises funds through a variety of methods, including our annual Cake Auction. These funds go toward the purchase of toys and clothes for needy families in the greater Bartow area. Group members arrange to create stockings, purchase toys and clothes, wrap gifts, and help deliver gifts.
- Bartow’s Church Service Center – http://www.churchservicecenter.com/
- The purpose of the Church Service Center is to serve people in need. The center attempts to meet the emergency needs of individuals on a temporary basis. We assist with food, clothing, household items and transportation. We also offer programs that assist people with free tax prep, finacial education and job readiness. The center also acts as a information and referral agency.
- Beth-El Farmworker Ministries – http://beth-el.info/
- Beth-El Farmworker Ministry began in 1976 when a small group of Cumberland Presbyterians rented a tiny house in Ruskin, Florida and began holding Spanish-language church services for migrant farmworkers. When the families came to worship, their many other needs were obvious: they were usually hungry, often cold in winter, some slept in cars or trucks, many could neither read nor write, and most lived in fear of deportation. In its effort to meet some of those needs, Beth-El grew. Now legally a nonprofit corporation, Beth-El Farmworker Ministry, Inc. has a 27 acre site on U.S. Highway 301 about 20 miles south of Tampa. The Ministry serves the nearby rural population. It operates under a covenant among its governing bodies, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Tampa Bay and Peace River Presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
- Thornwell Home for Children – http://www.thornwellhome.org/
- Founded as a Presbyterian ministry in 1875, Thornwell Home for Children is a joyful Christian community, offering hope and wholeness to children and families. Its goals are to provide loving homes for abused, abandoned and neglected children, to offer an opportunity for healing by providing proper healthcare and mental health counseling for every Thornwell child, and to offer Thornwell’s children hope for a successful future by providing educational support and teaching self-advocacy.
- Thornwell is also leading the way into communities in Florida by beginning the “Building Families” program in the Tampa Bay Presbytery. For more information, visit their information page at http://www.thornwellhome.org/buildingfamilies/
- Heifer International – http://www.heifer.org/
- Heifer International’s mission is to work with communities to end world hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth. The “teach a man to fish” philosophy is what drove Dan West to found Heifer International. And now, nearly 70 years later, that philosophy still inspires their work to end world hunger and poverty throughout the world once and for all.
- Marion Medical Mission (Shallow Well Project) – http://www.mmmwater.org
- Many of the health problems throughout the underdeveloped world are water-related. This is especially true in the rural areas of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, Africa where the people suffer from dysentery and other water-borne diseases. Most of the villages depend on surface water collected from open ponds and water holes.The Synod of Livingstonia, Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP), has a goal of making safe water available to everyone – even those in the most remote areas of Malawi. In 1990, missionary Jim McGill approached Marion Medical Mission with a way to provide safe water to villages using shallow wells that are sealed against surface pollution. The first year, they installed 13 wells. Since then the number has increased to the point that they have installed almost 22,000 wells by 2013. These wells provide more then 2 Million people with safe water.
““The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” – Matthew 25 v. 40