Taylor World Outreach (TWO) partnered with student-led ministry Carpenter’s Hands to fund a Bible matching event from March 24 to April 24.
Each donation of $4 funded one English Standard Version Bible or a children’s Bible. The amount will be matched up to 300 individual bibles, or about $1200.
The idea to create a collection of Bibles began while Carpenter’s Hands was serving at St. Martin’s, a soup kitchen in Marion, Indiana. Student leaders Abbie Cormier and Austin Snively had conversations about the need for Bibles in the community, as they encountered people who did not own one.
“We’d love to have a resource of Bibles for when conversations (like this) come up,” Snively, a senior finance major, said.
Responding to this need, Cormier and Snively’s original plan was to brainstorm with TWO’s team on how to gather Bibles. They almost settled upon offering opportunities for students to donate Bibles from their wings or floors.
The ongoing solution began when an anonymous Taylor connection offered to match the price of up to 300 Bible donations.
Through the Bible-matching fundraiser, donors offered over 600 Bibles, Cormier, a senior business management major, said.
“Even if there’s not 600 people who need Bibles, there’s always more (we can save) for the next project. An abundance of Bibles is never bad,” Mia Slane, a senior public relations student and a co-leader of Carpenter’s Hands, said.
The time period to give ended on April 24, the same week TUGather occurs. Afterward, a special period in chapel provided students and faculty the opportunity to write notes of encouragement to be tucked into donated Bibles. A moment of communal prayer over the impact these donations will bring to local communities was also held.
“We don’t want it to be just ‘giving money,’ we want to invite them into the journey,” Snively said.
To give, interested donors went to Taylor World Outreach’s giving page. The $4 was the equivalent of giving one new Bible to someone who needs it.
Cormier, Slane and Snively requested that interested community members give monetary donations rather than old or extra Bibles they own. It is more meaningful that each individual gets their own Bible rather than a used one, said Slane.
“There’s a person it’s going to and a family it’s impacting,” Slane said.
