Church raising funds for youth trip

Published 10:20 am Thursday, April 30, 2015

With yard sale season well underway in Dowagiac, one local church will be offering some unique items to deal seekers on the prowl this coming weekend — including a couple of 8 foot pews.

Members of the Federated Covenant Church will holding a rummage sale from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, inside the church sanctuary and front lawn. A variety of furniture, art, toys and other items will be available for purchase, ranging in price from a quarter up to $125 for some of the larger items, said organizer Debbie Luthringer.

Among the items donated for the sale includes four church pews, donated to organizers by the church leadership. Another big item given to them for sale include an entertainment center, Luthringer said.

“These are not just throwaway things,” she said. “[Members] have really been digging deep to find us nice stuff to sell.”

Several church members will also be baking cookies, cakes and other sweets for sale on Saturday, Luthringer said.

Luthringer and several other members of the church have set up the rummage sale in order to raise funds for the church’s upcoming trip to Tennessee in July for the 2015 “Covenant High in Christ” (CHIC) event, a conference for young Covenant Church members that takes place every three years, Luthringer said. Featuring Christian music concerts, motivational speakers, spiritual workshops and other activities, the event gathers teenagers from all over the country together to bring them closer to their faith.

The local church sponsored a trip for a few of its high school members to the last CHIC event in 2012, which Luthringer helped chaperone, she said.

“It takes your breath away, to see 6,000 kids all worshipping at the same time,” Luthringer said.

In addition to the eight high school students they are sponsoring to go on the excursion south this year, two of the members who went to the conference three years ago will making the trip again this year, Luthringer said.

“When they came back [in 2012] they became leaders in the church,” “It had a big impact on them as well as me.”

So far, the committee sponsoring the trip has raised more than $4,000, through fundraisers, can collection, and donations from other members, Luthringer said. They are hoping to raise another $2,200 through this weekend’s rummage sale and other fundraisers coming up over the next few months.

The 10 teens going on the trip this summer will also lend a hand for the sale this weekend, Luthringer said.

“The kids have been working hard too,” she said. “They’re not waiting for other to people to step in and take over. They’ve been in the thick of it like everyone else.”

Federated Covenant Church is located at 202 Center St. in Dowagiac. For more information, people can call the church at (269) 782-5656.