STRONG — Day Mountain Regional Middle School students, administration, faculty, and support staff recently delivered the large collection of food stuffs donated by families and friends during a recent food drive to Faith Works Community Outreach, the local food pantry on Main Street.

Participants walked from the school to the food pantry, which is located in what was once Beal’s General Store, across the street from the Strong United Methodist Church, with each participant carrying at least one item to be donated.

The former name of what is now Faith Works is acknowledged on the current sign. B.E.A.L.S now stands for “Bringing Everyone a Lasting Solution”. Faith Works Community Outreach is an interfaith, nonprofit organization. Services are Food Pantry, Recovery Programs and Disaster Relief Efforts.

Its mission is to “serve the people in our community who are struggling financially, in a way that preserves their dignity; provide a confidential environment that respects an individual’s privacy and acknowledges how difficult it is to ask for assistance, but encourages individual responsibility; be a clearinghouse of area resources that help to empower people to be self-sufficient as quickly as possible without placing additional stress on them, provide access to emotional, physical and spiritual healing throughout life’s hurts habits and hang-ups, and involve the community in a way that teaches empathy, encourages respect and nurtures com-passion.

The vision of this community outreach, as posted on Facebook, is “to feed the body healthy food, to spiritually feed hungry souls, to counsel the broken spirit, and express the love of God through Hands of Hope and Healing.

Faith Works Community Outreach, an interfaith, nonprofit organization, is also a registered Compassionate Ministries Center with the Church of the Nazarene. Services provided include the Food Pantry, which is open Mondays from 12pm – 2pm; Tuesdays, 5 pm – 7pm; and Fridays, 10am -12pm, along with the following:

Life’s Healing Choices: This is a recovery and healing small group program for adults. It is a 10 week program that is held twice year, once beginning in September and the other beginning in March. We offer two groups one male and one female group (these are same sex groups only), to accommodate for boundaries, confidentiality and anonymity.

Disaster Relief: We have had a relationship with the United Way, Red Cross, Housing Authority and City Hall in which we offer help with disasters and emergency situations in Augusta and some surrounding communities. From items needed, monetary gifts, acts of service and resources related to above listed programs. In the future we would like for our facility to be accessed as a disaster relief shelter.

Volunteers, food and monetary donations are always welcome.