Highland Evangelistic Association Provides Financial Assistance To County Residents

Monterey, VA – Highland County residents are fortunate to have a local organization there to help when they have problems meeting some financial needs. Chip Hill, pastor of the Word of Faith Church in Monterey, provides further information on how the local support group works.

“A few years ago, the Highland Evangelistic Association began to get some requests from people who had needs; they could pay their rent or they couldn’t pay their mortgage,” says Hill. “We saw that we needed to try to address this need; and the economy in trouble, we started to get more requests and so we started a fund called the food and shelter fund.”

Chip goes on to talk about when the organization began and some of its other activities.

“The Highland Evangelistic Association is an association of churches and ministers in Highland County that has been in existence for probably 50 years,” he says. “And it’s just a platform where churches and ministries in the community can get together and work together in unity. The Evangelistic Association oversees the Highland Revival and also the travelers fund, which is a much smaller fund. And then the Food and Shelter fund, which is particularly for Highland County residents who find themselves on hard times and need help to pay an important bill.”

The Highland Evangelistic Association receives funds from the Federal Emergency Management Administration, from local churches, from the Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative and from individual donations. Treasurer Donnie Ferrell talks about the amount of money expended in the food and shelter fund in recent years.

“In 2009 our expenditures in the food and shelter fund alone were a little over $10,000.00,” says Ferrell. “We also work pretty closely with the county government when people have gone to social services; sometimes they have a way that we don’t have, so we work together with them to try to help people. We’re allowed to help a person in a given fiscal year, we may have to help them with rent.”
“We couldn’t help them with rent again in that particular year, but we could help them with maybe their water bill. So it’s not cut down to being helped just once.”

The current president of the Highland Evangelistic Association is Andre Crummett. Chip Hill, Melissa Harman and Darren Massey are on the committee that reviews requests for financial assistance from the community.