Mission Depot comes to Franklin
FRANKLIN — About a year ago, Jane Stillings was looking for mission work for her church's youth; she didn't expect it to change her life.
Enlisting the help of area churches, Stillings, Outreach Committee Chairwoman at the Sussex United Methodist Church, partnered with Kim Burse of the Wantage United Methodist Church to create an organization—Skylands Outreach Depot—that is founded in the old shirt factory in Franklin, N.J. (406 Route 23 North Suite 1).
Sparta resident Dr. Jean-Paul Bonnet, founder of Skylands Medical Group, regularly provides patient care at offices in Lake Hopatcong. But in his spare time for the last 14 years he’s been traveling to Haiti to care for those who do not have access to medical care.
Shortly after the 7.0 Mw earthquake that devastated Haiti in January of 2010, Bonnet formed the Healing Haiti Fund, consisting of a team of medical professionals that volunteers its expertise and services toward providing accessible, mobile health care to the impoverished communities in Haiti, considered to be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Bonnet refurbishes school buses and fixes them into medical field clinics. Meanwhile, he donated 5,000 square feet of space within the Franklin warehouse for the Skylands Outreach Depot to use.
“Thanks to [Bonnet], we have a space to call our own,” said Burse said. “Skylands Outreach Depot is an ecumenical collaboration of love and community with the goal of human restoration, relief and renewal. Essentially, it’s a way to bring people of all ages and backgrounds together.”
A HUB (or branch) of Mission Central, a ministry of the Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church, Skylands Outreach Depot is dedicated, according to Stillings and Burse, “to mission education, outreach and disaster response in local communities, the United States and anywhere around the world.”
While one of the organization’s projects centers around assembling relief kits for the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), a non-profit 501(c)3 humanitarian organization, the immediate goal of the Depot is to prepare for the shipment of assembled relief buckets equipped with supplies specifically needed during a flood scenario, such as insect repellant spray, trash bags and dust masks.
To learn which supplies are needed, visit www.missioncentral.org/donate_items.php.
“As a part of Hurricane Sandy relief efforts,” Burse said. “Mission Central sent 7,000 flood relief buckets to the Jersey shore.”
“All of the supplies we have in storage were donated, and we have enough materials to put together at least one hundred flood buckets,” Stillings said. “The buckets we have were donated by Home Depot and Lowes. Mission Central will help us transport the buckets out once we’ve finished filling them with supplies. We were fortunate enough to get a grant of $4,500 from the Wallkill Valley Rotary Club #5560 for disaster relief efforts.”
In the past, the Skylands Outreach Depot assisted Bonnet in shipping three tractor-trailer trucks of medical equipment to impoverished countries — one to Haiti and the other two to Honduras.
The Depot begins assemblage of the flood buckets this Saturday, Sept. 27
“We can be found on Facebook,” said Burse, “and at www.skylandsoutreachdepot.org.”
Monetary donations and supplies are currently being accepted by the organization.