Tuesday night saw the mission of the East Tennessee Christian Home & Academy come full circle, according to Director of Development Ron Marvel.
During a busy holiday season, ETCHA was presented a check for $1,000 by the Carter County Men’s Fellowship organization during their regularly scheduled meeting, held this month at First Christian Church in downtown Elizabethton.
“These dollars are just amazing,” Marvel said. “The relationships we’ve had with our churches in Carter County … the Christian churches in the county have been the foundation and backbone of our ministry. We wouldn’t be around without the Christian churches in the county. We’re so grateful not only for the donation, but for each of the churches here tonight and what they’ve done for the ministry.”
Tuesday night also proved to be a special night, according to Marvel, with ETCHA actually beginning 70 years ago inside First Christian.
In 1946, Preacher Fred Smith started ETCHA after watching children in the county be placed in jail because they didn’t have a family to provide for them. According to the organization’s website, “with no facility in the community to care for them Preacher Smith and a leadership board of 14 members opened ETCHA on a beautiful 18 acre property that overlooks the surrounding mountains and valleys.”
Charles VonCannon, Fellowship member and county commissioner, presented the check and stressed the importance of the group for the community. Recently, the County Commission OK’ed a resolution to donate funding to ETCHA to help with operation.
The Fellowship was able to provide the monetary donation after a surplus of funding came up after providing scholarships, according to group’s newly elected president Scott Fisher.
“The East Tennessee Christian Home is a wonderful place where young people can be raised in a safe, godly environment,” Fisher said. “A lot of the children come rough backgrounds so having that right here in Elizabethton is a big plus. The work they’re doing over there is phenomenal with the young people. I truly believe it is much easier to mold the young minds to go in the right direction than it is to correct when they get older. That’s one of the reasons why I and the rest of the members support the East Tennessee Christian Home. I’m very glad we had the opportunity to help them out this year.”
The organization, which is comprised of 27 congregations, is active within the community and aim to provide help and assistance while spreading the word of Christ, according to Fisher.
“Our mission is to exalt Christ,” he said. “Connect the churches that are here locally … we have many churches of Christ and Christian churches that are involved. We want to encourage believers and equip men for service. We bring all these churches together because we know that together we can be more in the community than we can by ourselves.
“We’re looking at a couple of service projects that we hope to accomplish this year,” Fisher continued. “Our big push is education. Educating the next generation of teachers and preachers in the church. We provide 10 to 12 scholarships every year to young people that are attending Christian colleges around here. That’s our big push each year.”
Anyone looking to get involved with the organization have multiple avenues to choose from.
“We meet on the third Tuesday of every month,” Fisher said. “They can look us up online on Facebook by searching Carter County Christian Men’s Fellowship with all the venues we’ll be located at. They can always reach me, I’m with Borderview Christian Church and we definitely encourage anyone that want’s to get involved to do so.”
ETCHA is currently going through the “Give Thanks” campaign and the director added that things have gone successful this year.
“The donations have been real good this year,” Marvel said. “We’re approaching our goal but it isn’t too late to get involved. Donors that give monthly, that sustained giving, is so important to what we do and we appreciate them. These dollars and prayers go toward helping us keep our doors open and we couldn’t be more excited with the support we’ve received.”
Individuals looking to get involved and make a donation can visit etcha.org or call (423) 542-4423