EDITORIAL: Why the MCC Relief Sale matters

What can we do to help those in need?

That may be an oversimplification, but that question, which can be taken both literally and rhetorically, is at the heart of what Mennonite Central Committee is all about. Established in the fall of 1920 by an Anabaptist community that had arrived in North America from Russia and Ukraine several decades earlier, the organization’s original purpose was to provide food for Mennonites starving in a war-torn Ukraine. It wasn’t long, however, that MCC recognized needs in other places around the world and began providing aid there, as well, making the relief effort one of global proportion.

It’s something that has been going on, now, for 101 years.

The upcoming relief sale, scheduled for Saturday, July 10 at the Prairie Arboretum beginning at 5:30 p.m., is something that has grown out of that basic question:

What can we do to help those in need?

One of the answers to that question — and the question of, “What can we do to help MCC?” — came in 1987, when the first relief sale of its kind debuted in South Dakota. It has taken on several different forms in the years and decades since – and with a few years off – but the fundraiser is now in its 32nd year. Twenty-five of those were in Sioux Falls, with Saturday’s event marking the seventh time it has been in Freeman.

Over the course of those 30-plus years, nearly $2.8 million has been raised locally for Mennonite Central Committee’s global relief efforts. And that’s just one cog in a much larger wheel.

You don’t have to have Anabaptist roots to value the importance of offering aid to somebody in need. But the concept “in the name of Christ” is at the center of Mennonite theology and a pillar on which MCC stands. That started in the villages of Ukraine in 1922, where 25,000 people a day were provided with rations over a period of three years, and where 50 Fordson tractors and plows were shipped to Mennonite villages where horses had been lost during World War I.

Those efforts expanded in the 1930s through work with Russian and Bruderhof refugees in Brazil and Paraguay, and then to Poland, England and France. MCC later established a Civilian Public Service program as an alternative to military service and then a voluntary service program charged with enabling young people to go out into the world to help those less fortunate in any number of ways.

All of this has played a part in helping to craft the current vision and mission of MCC, “a worldwide ministry of Anabaptist churches (sharing) God’s love and compassion for all in the name of Christ by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice. MCC envisions communities worldwide in right relationship with God, one another and creation.”

Saturday’s South Dakota MCC Relief Sale, which begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Freeman Prairie Arboretum, is one small piece of a much larger puzzle. But it’s also one way this community of Mennonite churches can come together and make a difference, a few dollars at a time.

But make no mistake about it: The MCC Relief Sale is not just for Mennonites. The larger community can and should take part in Saturday evening’s activities and contribute to the greater good by having a slice of pie and ice cream, donating to the My Coins Count project, bidding on an auction item or cutting a check to MCC, just because.

With Mennonite Central Committee’s long-established method of distribution and close attention to areas of need, contributing on Saturday — however big or small — is an easy and effective way to make a difference.

Jeremy Waltner  |  Editor & Publisher

Jeremy Waltner | Editor & Publisher