Dixie Kuykendall calls herself a “professional scrounger.”
She said she doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not. But Steve Loggins, associational missionary for North Jefferson Baptist Association, said he believes it’s definitely a good thing.
Kuykendall, a member of First Baptist Church, Mount Olive, became director of the association’s CARING Center two years ago, and ever since then she has been a tireless force for the ministry, he said.
She’s drummed up partnerships with people and businesses from Walmart to Panera, receiving truckloads of donations from socks and underwear to leftover pastries and moving them on to the homeless, hungry schoolchildren and families in need in the area.
Many innovations
“Her innovations are many,” Loggins said. “Dixie has grown the ministry of our CARING Center so much in the past two years. She has expanded the volunteer base and involved our churches in local missions while reaching those in need in our community.”
He said one of his favorite ways she’s expanded the ministry is to offer a clothes closet to local middle school students.
“Often children will come to school inappropriately dressed, and now they do not have to go home but can take something from the school clothes closet that they can wear that day and keep,” Loggins said. “We have seen an increase in donations to our ministry and more people are involved in local missions because of Dixie’s encouragement and influence in our churches.”
But Kuykendall says all she does is scrounge, and God just keeps opening doors.
“He’s just turned things upside down,” she said.
Every Tuesday she runs a Bible study filled with people who say they don’t feel like they fit in at church or don’t have the right things to wear.
The center gives food out every day and packs food into the backpacks of needy children every Friday before they go home for the weekend. They served 150 families at a recent Christmas party and were able to do it strictly on donations that partners and churches had given.
There’s never any down time here,” Kuykendall said. “We’ve just been blessed, and I’m blessed to be a part of it.” (Grace Thornton)
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