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BY LINDA WORTHINGTON
UMCONNECTION STAFF

Members and clergy of five United Methodist churches in southern Maryland came together Oct. 25 to celebrate the 15th anniversary of their shared ministry to SMILE (Service Makes Indiv-idual Lives Exciting), an ecumenical community outreach ministry that helps to meet the needs of poor people in the area.

They were joined by four other supporting churches, Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Baptist. Our Lady Star of the Sea Roman Catholic church, with the largest facility, hosted the dinner celebration.

'Disciples from all of these churches have, are and will be faithfully serving the ?least of these? in our community,' said the Rev. Sue Shorb-Sterling, pastor of Olivet UMC. The other United Methodist churches making up the ministry are St. Paul in Lusby, St. John and Eastern on the Lusby Charge, and Solomons.

SMILE?s services consist of a thrift shop, an emergency assistance program and a food pantry all housed in a debt-free building next to member church, Middleham Episcopal, whose member donated $150,000, matched by the nine churches, to build the facility 15 years ago.

SMILE also holds ecumenical worship services for the community three times a year (Thanksgiving, Good Friday and high school baccalaureate).

At Thanksgiving, volunteers serve a free meal for about 600 people, said Betsey Campaigne, current secretary and former director of SMILE. The Lighthouse Inn, which was destroyed by a fire last May, donated and served the traditional meal at no cost. This year, another restaurant will do the honors.

Around 250 people come to the American Legion Hall for Christmas dinner. Volunteers deliver food baskets the week before both Thanksgiving and Christmas to about 250 homes, and also provide Easter baskets.

The SMILE enterprise is run by volunteers, some 200 from all the churches that participate in the ministry. There is no paid staff.

According to Shorb-Sterling, poverty is growing in the area, if numbers of people using the food pantry is any indication. In August, volunteers from the sponsoring churches served 726 families with 2,278 family members. In 2006, they served 565 families with more than 1,800 members.

'We?re seeing a 15 percent increase each year in people coming for our services,' Shorb-Sterling said.

Sales from the Thrift Shop, open 15 hours a week, help to support the food pantry. 'The Thrift Store does very well,' Campaigne said.

Thrift Shop sales in August alone were $35,100, said Shorb-Sterling, who is on the board of directors, as are clergy from each participating church. 'Items sell for only a few dollars,' she said. In addition, in August they gave more than $5,235 worth of items to those who could not afford to purchase them.

The emergency assistance program assists families with short-term needs. The program is coordinated by Irvin Beverly, a Lusby resident who serves as a local pastor at Bethesda UMC in Valley Lee. He has an unlimited budget to meet the needs of hurting people who can?t pay utility, rent, mortgage, medical or fuel bills.

During 2005, SMILE paid $127,000 in electric bills to SMECO, in order to keep the company from shutting off electricity to 362 clients.

Earlier in the year, the Rev. Dell Hinton had presented SMILE with the 2006 Bishop?s Award on Ecumenism, sponsored by the conference Board of Ecumenical and Interreligious Life (BEIL), which she chairs. The award carries a $1,000 stipend. SMILE also received the award in 2004.

'We want to bring the people we serve back to the churches,' Campaigne said. To that end, following help with visioning and planning provided by the Rev. Tim Warner in 2004, the board set a direction for the future, which included more outreach to the clients. They now have available literature of each church, graced with photographs that show each church and location and tells something of its ministries.

SMILE?s services are not limited to Calvert County, though that is where most of them are. After the tsunami hit Indonesia in 2004, the board decided to donate $1,000 to relief efforts through UMCOR. Then the clergy board members said, let?s send $1,000 from each of our churches. And they did. Likewise they sent checks to assisting agencies, including UMCOR, after the hurricanes last year and to the Amish community that recently suffered loss at the hands of a gunman.