CedarWood Expansion Project

Description

Since 2013—when the Lord specifically told us to care for those in need—CedarWood has been an integral part of World for Jesus Ministries. From the moment we opened our CW Pantry doors, God orchestrated each step of this arm of our ministry to create a path to healing for men, women, and families. Our heart is to take the power and control of our government off the lives of many of our clients as we provide food, clothing, and even Christ-centered classes to help bring stability and strength to those in need. Our work extends beyond our own organization and provides connections for those in need to other non-profit agencies who can support these families in ways in which we are not yet prepared. The goal is to help extracted people from the clutches of government-sponsored agencies and help them gain independence as they become stronger, and ultimately, productive members of society. As we’ve shared before, not only is the message of salvation and prayer always offered to our clients, but at CedarWood Int’l, we strive to usher our clients on a path of restoration. Needless to say, we are not your neighborhood food bank. Our CW Pantry seeks to serve the whole man and I stand amazed at what our team has been able to accomplish in our current setting. 

That said, I’d like to share the PDF our 2017 CedarWood Summer Report. I believe Adam Shephard did a beautiful job detailing our efforts, as well as explaining the needs of our CedarWood department. I’ve inserted much of his letter below:

Since its inception, CedarWood has operated out of rented space within a local church—Bethel Chapel—in Mountlake Terrace, WA. When CedarWood started in early 2013 we served just two families during our first pantry event.  Currently, we serve an average of more than 70 families each week.  In addition to food, CedarWood distributes coats, clothing, bedding, household items, as well as weekly meal kits to school-aged children as part of our BackPack Kids program. 

During our first summer, we averaged about six food pickups a week in the back of our personal pickup trucks and minivans.  We now average more than thirty weekly pickups (seven days a week) utilizing a box truck and commercial van purchased through donated funds. 

As CedarWood grew, we added paid staff and volunteers, shelving and hand-trucks, refrigerators and freezers.  We began our operation with only half of a large closet just to store dry goods, but now we feel cramped with 4 dedicated storage rooms, 2 off-site storage units, and the entire original closet! That doesn’t even include the many fridges and freezers we have in Bethel Chapel’s gym!  The growth we experienced has required us to increase both our efficiency and our capacity helping us improved our processes and systems to the best of our ability. We have constantly evaluated, experimented, and made significant changes in every aspect of our organization through various stages of growth so that we could effectively serve an increasing number of clients while utilizing the same space.

CedarWood has maxed out the capacity of our current location.  This leaves us with one exciting alternative—to seek out a more spacious place of our own that will accommodate all of our needs!    The search has begun!  We will not hurry through this process as there are several factors to consider, such as sufficient floor space, parking for our CedarWood clients, proximity to public transportation for our clients, and so forth.  This is a huge step for CedarWood and our parent organization “The World For Jesus Ministries.”  We believe the future growth, development, and our ability to increase size of our community impact, depends on this move.  This is your opportunity to partner with us!   Your donations are vital to ensuring CedarWood’s development and growth in blessing those in need with food, clothing, household items, and more!

Adam S. on behalf of our CW Team

Beautifully said! The truth is, CedarWood has become a model of what I believe the Lord is calling the Church to in the days ahead. Government-sponsored agencies are often necessary in emergencies, but when they become the source and provision for our lives, they begin to strip us of who we are. Their hold on us grows deeper with each month, causing our dependence to transfer from God to government; and that’s a dangerous place to live.

Many of us know people who are dependent on the government and we’ve seen the impact it’s had on their lives. Often, it’s not positive. I believe it’s because God ordained the Church to meet the needs of the poor, not the world’s system.

One of our prayer points each week is for reformation to take place in our nation. God is calling us to reform the way we depend on man (government) and bring us back into a place of dependence on Him. Part of that step can be achieved when the Church steps in and provides a path of restoration. This is what CedarWood is doing today; providing a path of restoration. In order to continue to expand and truly develop a model that can be repeated, we need our own facility.

Here’s your opportunity to partner with us in this effort. To put us into a facility large enough to accommodate CW’s current operations and allow us some growing room, we will increase our monthly financial obligation from $4000 to almost $10,000. However, our return on this investment will far exceed anything we can imagine as it will expand our outreach into the community exponentially.

Right now, our team sets up and tears down the pantry operation every Monday—a necessary step because our Pantry is held in the Church gymnasium. It takes 4 hours to set up, the pantry is open for 90 minutes, then clean up and tear down takes another 3-4  hours.  It’s a 9 ½ hour day to only have our doors open 90 minutes and serve 70+* families (*this number represents 260-300 people). If we had our own facility, we would be able to completely revamp this schedule, stay open longer, AND even add additional Pantry days allowing us to support even more families within the community (not to mention the wear and tear on the bodies of our staff). In addition, we could expand our other programs.

The Church is where people in need should be able to come and find the path to healing and restoration! Through the work of CedarWood each Monday, countless souls have accepted the Lord as their Savior. We don’t require they hear the Gospel message to receive food or clothing, but the love they feel from our team as they meet their needs each week has opened their eyes to Jesus in a way nothing else could have. From this point, we’ve had the privilege to pave a path of healing and reformation to individuals and families!

We are ready to take a step of faith and pursue a solid lead that would significantly expand our reach into the community! Are you ready to take that step with us by supporting it on a monthly basis? If so, please send a partnership commitment letter (see below) to Tiffany.wfjm@gmail.com ! We need to know we’ve got the financial support before we take the next step.

Blessings & love,

Ricci Wilson

Copy and paste the following statement into an email addressed to Tiffany.wfjm@gmail.com. She will save your commitment letter and, if you like, sign you up to receive weekly updates with stats and personal stories from our Monday Pantry events. 

I/We commit to support the expansion work of CedarWood Int’l by my/our donation of ___________per month. I also agree to partner with you in prayer over this outreach and would welcome weekly correspondence providing updates on the CedarWood Pantry efforts.

Sincerely,

_________________