Luxor church uses surplus mission team funds to help Greater Latrobe, Hempfield Area schools

A country church in the village of Luxor in Hempfield decided to use its surplus mission team money to support students at two Westmoreland County school districts.

After reaching out to the food service department to see whether there were students with unpaid lunch accounts, Luxor United Methodist of Greensburg donated $500 to the Greater Latrobe School District in March. The money was used to pay off 20 unpaid lunch accounts.

Each year, the church mission group, a team of six women, hosts fundraisers for various causes.

“I have a phenomenal mission team at this church,” Pastor Tammy Falcsik said. “For a small country church, they are so mighty. I know we’re not supposed to be proud, but I am so proud of our mission team.”

One of the annual programs the group offers is Christmas Families. The group raises money for families in need of financial support. Last holiday season, the church received only one family. After they bought the family clothes, provided them a Christmas dinner and gave the parents gift cards, they had $1,300 left.

Mission members host soup and sub sales throughout the year to raise money for their programs. They also lean on donations from parishioners.

“The whole community just supports everything that the church takes on,” Falcsik said. “As long as the good Lord lets us, we will continue on reaching out into the community.”

According to Falcsik, after a group discussion, the members decided to donate the rest of the money to local schools. Greater Latrobe and Hempfield Area’s Stanwood and West Point elementary schools received donations from the church.

“I looked them up after they donated, and they are a pretty small church,” said Greater Latrobe Superintendent Michael Porembka. “What they did was extremely generous.”

It isn’t the first time Greater Latrobe has experienced such kindness from community members. Porembka shared that every three months, an individual donates $5 to the school to help pay off overdrawn lunch accounts.

“I think one of the best parts of our school district is the community support that we receive,” Porembka said. “Those random acts of kindness really show how much people in the community care about our students, and I think they care about our students because they believe in the culture that we’ve established here at Greater Latrobe.”