On Wednesday, December 7, 2022, the Lewes Rehoboth Association of Churches (LRAC) Board of Directors will present a check for $100,000 to help What is Your Voice, a local domestic abuse shelter purchase land to expand its ministry. Jacqueline Sterbach, founder and Board President of What is Your Voice, will receive the check on behalf of the shelter. The grant comes with an additional $36,000 a year for the next three years to support operations at What is Your Voice. The LRAC Board will make the presentation at the New Life Thrift Shop, an LRAC-sponsored ministry that raises the funds the Board grants to organizations that share LRAC’s mission to serve our Cape Henlopen School District neighbors in need of housing and food.

The New Lift Thrift Shop, managed by Andrea Caswell and staffed by over a hundred volunteers, has grown from passionate beginnings in several area churches to a six-day-a-week ministry that has made possible grants of over $500,000 to ministry partners in 2022. Nearly half these funds support the Community Resource Center, a ministry birthed as LRAC’s Lend a Hand outreach program in 1985 which offers financial assistance to over a thousand families annually, a day center and job center for homeless, and a food rescue program distributing over 30,000 bags of food.

Other ministry partners supported by New Life Thrift Shop proceeds in 2022 include Family Promise of Southern Delaware (addressing root causes of family homelessness), Lighthouse for Broken Wings (homeless shelter and transition housing), West Side New Beginnings (enrichment for West Side children), Cape Henlopen Food Basket (USDA food distribution program), The Way Home (helping previously incarcerated citizens transition back into the community), Lewes After School Program, and most recently, What is Your Voice.

The Lewes Rehoboth Association of Churches was established in 1983 as a collaborative effort of nine local churches to come together to serve those in need in the community. Each church had some form of outreach to the community and decided to combine their efforts to better coordinate their work to assist and support individuals and families in the Cape Henlopen School District. In January 2022, LRAC transitioned its leadership to a nine-member Board of Directors, elected annually by representatives from the eleven current member churches:

LRAC Point of Contact:

Rev. Dr. Bo Gordy-Stith

President, LRAC Board of Directors and Pastor of Community and Communications at Epworth UMC 

Cell: 302-373-5143

Email: Bgordy-stith@epworth.faith