The congregation at Marlow United Methodist Church in Summerdale may be relatively small in number, but their contributions to the local community and recently to soldiers overseas make the numbers seem stronger.

There are only 160 members in the congregation, which has been in the same area since the 1920s, but just last year the church moved into a new sanctuary. The new sanctuary was built right next to the old sanctuary and the church has plans to continue using both. Babbette Heilmeier, publicist for the church, said she and many other members of the congregation hated to leave the old sanctuary because it was what they were used to. According to Heilmeier, the congregation just outgrew their old building.

According to Heilmeier, the church is always busy with one mission project or another year-round.

“Every month we have a new mission project. Locally we do the Lighthouse, Mary’s Shelter in Elberta, the Boy’s Ranch and then we collect school supplies for three local schools at the beginning of each school year and we collect food for food banks in October and November. We also collect things for the Veteran’s home in Bay Minette. Those are things we do on a regular basis,” said Heilmeier.

The most recent project undertaken by the congregation was called Soldiers’ Angels Germany. According to Heilmeier, this past year was the second time the church has collected items and money for the Landstuhl Army hospital in Germany. Members of the congregation donated all of the items collected.

“We sent several boxes of sweats, T-shirts and underwear and then at the end after we had sent this off we still had people donating money. So, we sent another $160 there for them to purchase phone cards,” said Heilmeier.

Mary Anne Miller coordinated this year’s project. Miller had donated to the program in years past and she thought it would be a good project to share with her church.

Miller received an e-mail from the coordinators of the program in Germany in thanks for the donation.

“Everything was perfect and very much appreciated by the patients here. Thank you for your generosity and compassion. It means so very much to the guys to know people back home are thinking of them,” the email stated.

On Sunday the youth group will begin fundraising for its mission project of the year with a Valentine’s Day dinner. The youth group has made plans to participate in a Cardboard City event at Oak Hollow Farm on April 1 and 2.

“It is a fundraiser that is being held at Oak Hollow Farms. It is for the Family Promise of Baldwin County,” explained Heilmeier. “I had never heard of it before until I did some research. It is an interfaith hospitality network of 14 host churches. What they do is they take homeless families with children in Baldwin County. They spend two weeks at a time in a church. The Family Promise sets them up with cots in Sunday school classrooms and they stay there for a week or two at a time. During the day they have a day center they go to. They transport families who don’t have vehicles. The host churches make the meals for the family.”

Heilmeier said Marlow UMC is not currently involved with Family Promise, but she would like to present the idea to the elders of the church to see if there is an interest in joining the network of churches.

The church youth directors, Kaci and Joshua Odem, picked Cardboard City as the project for the youth group this year. The church hopes to send eight-10 youth to the event in April. Heilmeier and the Odems hope the youth members get a lot out of the event.

“This is what they do, the kids go and they take their own cardboard boxes and they spend the night in their cardboard box to show them the feeling of what homelessness is about,” said Heilmeier. “It sounds like it is just going to be something that is going to be great for them.”

The Valentine’s dinner will be held at the church on Sunday, Feb. 13 at 5:30 p.m. The dinner will cost $25 per couple and reservations are required. All proceeds will go towards Cardboard City.

Dinner will be cooked and served by the youth group and youth directors and will include a greed salad, cranberry chicken and bread pudding.

To make a reservation please call 251-404-2331.