‘Feels like Christmas in here’: Rock Hill churches unite for holiday giving
There was a Christmas Eve service at Flint Hill Baptist Church in Rock Hill. A sign on the wall simply said “Giving is caring. All are welcome.”
All were welcome.
And so many gave.
People came in wheelchairs. Some came by church bus, then used walkers to get inside. There was no guest list. A grandmother named Janie Crockett with five grandchildren came in and sat in the front row.
“Feels like Christmas in here,” Crockett said. “The spirit is here.”
The five grandchildren all said they hoped to get a bicycle for Christmas.
Inside the church and behind the sanctuary, a host of volunteers filled the fellowship hall, the parking lot, and the kitchen. They showed what Christmas is all about.
“Christmas is about giving. It is about sharing. It is about love,” said Rev. Christopher Harris, senior pastor at Flint Hill.
Tables in the fellowship hall sagged with hundreds of donated toys. To-go styrofoam containers were filled with turkey and all the fixings. Clothes were wrapped. There were toiletries and bags of fruit.
All had been donated by church people. Flint Hill Baptist, Oakland Avenue Presbyterian, Grace Lutheran, Epiphany Lutheran, Woodland United Methodist, St. John’s United Methodist, and First Presbyterian. The churches band together all year for a hunger ministry and other outreach services.
Christmas Eve is the culmination -- a huge meal, and gifts for people the churchgoers may not know.
The holiday giving program started by Alice Ann McClurkin and others from all the churches a quarter century ago has become a fixture in Rock Hill.
The event brings people together with a common purpose, said Tom Love, a longtime volunteer from Woodland United Methodist.
“The spirit of Christmas is giving to others,” Love said. “Every person here from every church believes it, and acts on it.”
Some meals and gifts were picked up by those at the church. Others were delivered.
Hundreds of meals, and some gifts, were delivered by volunteers in vans and SUVs and cars to peole around the city who are disabled. More meals were taken to The Haven men’s shelter for the homeless.
Vehicles pulled up to the church’s back door near the kitchen. Volunteers took meals to waiting drivers for delivery to people who will know from the food and gifts that they are not forgotten.
Still more volunteers sorted clothes outside in a garage, to be given away with the food and the bikes and the gifts.
All of the food, every bicycle and toy, had been donated by church people.
There were no name tags to show what church a person represented. Volunteers said they all represented the same God and the same love for their fellow man.
“It is a joy for all of us from these churches to be able to serve so many people,” said Wyman Henderson, a deacon at Flint Hill Baptist.
Harris walked out to the parking lot. He pointed at the bicycles that would bring smiles to children -- like those sitting in his sanctuary’s front pew. He spoke of the volunteers from so many churches doing so many deeds for so many people. He spoke about community and caring and what people can do if they join hands and hearts.
“This partnership of churches, partnership of people, remains an inspiration for all of us in the community,” Harris said. “Rock Hill is known as an All-American city. This is that America right here.”
Harris put it simply: “That togetherness is Christmas.”
