Programs & Services
United Christian Ministries helps Jackson County Residents in three ways: with a food pantry, partial financial assistance for critical bills, and referrals to other local supportive agencies.
Food Assistance: Our most frequent help request is for food. We operate a client-choice food pantry with canned vegetables, canned fruits, fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, cereals, pastas, frozen meats, and more. Clients may receive food assistance as often as every two weeks.
Personal Items and Household Goods: When available, we provide personal toiletry items such as soap, shampoo and toothpaste. When available, we provide household items such as toilet paper, laundry detergent and dish detergent.
Financial Aid: Limited financial assistance is available to pay for local past due utilities, past due rent, prescription co-pays, and some other expenses.
Other Services
When available, during cold weather months, we distribute blankets and other cold weather items.
At Thanksgiving, we traditionally create 200 Thanksgiving food kits for our residents in need. The kit changes each year depending on donations and needs.
At Christmas, we partner with our local schools to provide large food bags to students whose families need support. These bags help to ease the added food needs when school is out for Winter Break. Thousands of food items are donated by churches, businesses, and individuals to fill over 500 bags each year.
Other Resources
UCM staff can refer you to other agencies to help meet your emergency needs. We coordinate with many Jackson County agencies to help keep our residents stay warm, housed, and fed. You may download a list of other local resources here. For financial planning/budgeting assistance, visit Consumer.gov | what to know and do. You may download a personal budget worksheet here.
Listen to these podcasts for more about UCM:
https://lighthousesylva.com/episode-4/
By: Pastor Mark Rogers, Lighthouse Baptist Church
https://stapelphotography.wordpress.com/hh
By: Lili J. Stapel, Journalism and Photography Student
Western Carolina University