ORANGE BEACH, AL — For the third year in a row, the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, met at the Orange Beach Events Center.

The group desires to bless the communities where they meet and again chose the Christian Service Center as the recipient of their outreach. Each day of their meeting, the group collected food, household supplies, personal hygiene items, baby supplies and cash donations for the CSC.

The group contributed 4,175 pounds of food and supplies. In addition, their generous cash donation will allow the CSC to purchase more than 8,000 pounds of food from the area food bank. All of this was accomplished in only seven days.

The CSC volunteers call the group the Visiting Angels. These Angels were visiting here from all over the world; Texas, Minnesota, New Zealand, Florida, Wisconsin and Georgia were a few of the places represented.

The gift from the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, is far and away the single largest contribution to our food pantry – for the third year in a row. This contribution will be used to aid families in need in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Fort Morgan and will provide hundreds of meals.

When the food drive coordinator Lonnie Gjesvold was asked where they heard about CSC, Gjesvold said that they were pointed our way by a city official three years ago when they had their first meeting here.

“We are grateful for the generosity of everyone in the group meeting here,” a CSC spokesman said. “We are also grateful to our community officials for supporting us.”

In its 25th year, the Christian Service Center is a “Hand Up” rather than a “Hand Out” agency. Clients are given immediate emergency aid as well as guidance on finding solutions to their problems. The CSC is a 100 percent volunteer agency funded by the churches of Pleasure Island, various community organizations, including the United Way of Baldwin County, and interested individuals.

For more information please call the CSC at 251-968-5256 or visit cscgs.com.