The Mission Ministry of Custer Road UMC
follows Jesus' command to love God and neighbor by coming together in collaboration with our community, intentionally building trusted relationships and growing as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Local Missions
Agape provides critical housing and life skills that empower women and their children to transform from crisis and poverty to self-sustaining, fulfilling lives. Custer Road holds an annual collection of personal and household items and provides monetary donations and volunteers.
Ongoing Donations:
- Gift cards—Wal-Mart, Kroger, Tom Thumb, Visa/MasterCard (for food, clothing, medications), Race Trac and Quik Trip (stations closest to Agape housing, for gas). Gift card values be no more than $25/card. Order gift cards from the Custer Road student Revelation Choir!
- Amazon Wish List: Items on this list will help provision the new townhomes for homeless single women and homeless single moms and their kids.
- Monetary Donations: Submit online, or make checks payable to CRUMC, and note “Agape” in the memo line.
Please bring donations to the bin in the Mission Donation Area. Gift Cards and checks can be left at the front desk.
Missions Gift Market | Nov 2, 9am-noon | Nov 3 & 10, 8am-12:30pm | Upper Room
The Missions Gift Market (formerly Alternative Gift Market/AGM) is typically held in November or early December. This gives you an opportunity to do a different kind of Christmas shopping. Shoppers have the opportunity to donate to charities and give a gift to someone really in need. This Christmas, consider giving a different kind of gift, a gift that gives twice. Give to your loved one, a handmade beaded cross or nativity set, or a certificate for a week’s worth of clean water. When you do, your gift helps someone in need – a hungry family, a struggling child, a Third World artisan. Your giving can transform the world!
“In Bed by Christmas” helps families in poverty, crisis and/or need by providing household furnishings at NO COST!
Serve this Christmas season by donating time, monetary gifts, and gently used furniture.
Wednesdays | 4:45pm | The Wheelhouse
Saturdays | 7:45am | The Wheelhouse
Pick-up trucks/trailers are helpful, but not required.
For details on volunteering and donating, visit BED START.
Pre-selected items can be purchased via the Amazon Wish List.
Bed Start Pillow Project: Sign up HERE to donate pillows to much needed families!
Mentor Training Session | Saturday August 17 | 10-11am | The Commons
Mentoring: No special training is needed, only a desire to intentionally build a relationship with a student 30-60 minutes per week.
Custer Road United Methodist Church is dedicated to fostering trusted relationships in our neighborhood by partnering with local schools. We are currently collaborating with Christie and Thomas Elementary Schools, aiming to enlist 100 CRUMC Mentors. These schools prioritize student mentoring as crucial for enhancing academic achievement, particularly for their Title 1 students. As Title 1 schools focus on improving outcomes for disadvantaged students, they seek individuals who can dedicate time to reading and assisting with assignments.
To get connected at one of our partner schools, email Pat Garrett, LSM/Mentor Coordinator.
Each fall, Custer Road UMC puts together Harvest Boxes for Meals on Wheels seniors. For more information and a list of items needed, visit HERE.
Meals on Wheels provides hot noon meals to seniors who live alone, who are physically or cognitively unable to go to a grocery store or prepare a meal, or who are homebound. Custer Road UMC provides donations during the year and Harvest Boxes in the fall. Find out how to be a driver HERE.
People Who Love People serve the homeless and food insecure folks in the parking lot of God’s Pantry in Plano, located at 1896 K Avenue, Unit 200.
PWLP is a group of faith-based folks from churches in the area who supply breakfast items, smiles, encouragement, and show the love of Jesus.
Mondays and Thursdays | 7:30am
Sign up HERE to provide needed items.
Winter Celebration | Dec 12 | 5:30-8:30pm | Guinn SPC
The mission of the School-Age Parent Program is to provide the practical and emotional support expectant and parenting teens need to stay in school, remain on track for graduation, be the best parents they can be, and prepare for a bright future. Educational support is provided for students as they transition from pregnancy, to birth, and beyond.
Custer Road sponsors the Winter Celebration and End of the Year/Graduation Celebration.
If you have any questions, please email Rhonda Dye.
Seniors serving seniors handyman program. Volunteers provide minor home maintenance and repair services with a key focus on safety issues in the home, at no charge. They focus on seniors, age 60 and older and others with special needs within the Plano community.
Donations are welcome to offset the cost of materials and help others who are less fortunate. Larger projects are done on Fridays, with smaller tasks completed throughout the week.
Find details HERE
Volunteer Training Dates:
Volunteer Training Dates:
November 9 at 9:00am-Register HERE
November 11at 7:00pm-Register HERE
December 7 at 9:00am-Register HERE
December 9 at 7:00pm-Register HERE
All training will take place in person at the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), 4700 14th St, Plano, in the Multipurpose Room.
For more information please contact the CRUMC Team Lead Mark Orland at or (214) 364-5501.
The purpose of POWS is to provide a safe, warm, and secure place for the homeless to stay overnight when the temperature drops below 40 degrees or there are dangerous conditions which could cause injury or death from exposure.
Learn more HERE.
Monday-Wednesday | July 1-3 | 9:30am-noon | Walnut Hill Church
Project Transformation is a seven-week summer day camp for inner-city children that is facilitated by PT Corps Members and partner churches. About 100 corps members and many volunteers work with the children to teach Bible lessons, make crafts, play games, sing songs, write plays and read one-on-one. This year Custer Road volunteers can sign up (for 1 or more days) to be a Bookworm Buddy, reading one-on-one with kids attending camp so that their reading skills are improved, and they are ready for the next school year.
Summer Lunch Program
Custer Road’s Summer Lunch Program serves children and adults in our community throughout the summer. The goal is to provide a free nutritious lunch, fellowship, sports activities and support to love on our neighbors.
Leadership Opportunities
Would you like to be more involved in our Mission Ministry?
This role is fun and easy! Serve as the liaison between the church and Project Transformation (PT). Work with their staff to fill volunteer needs and provide items they request. Shadow current PT Coordinator, Gale Paul, this summer and learn the ropes! For detailed information, email the Director of Missions, Ryan Murphy.
Global Missions
Missions Gift Market | Nov 2, 9am-noon | Nov 3 & 10, 8am-12:30pm | Upper Room
The Missions Gift Market (formerly Alternative Gift Market/AGM) is typically held in November or early December. This gives you an opportunity to do a different kind of Christmas shopping. Shoppers have the opportunity to donate to charities and give a gift to someone really in need. This Christmas, consider giving a different kind of gift, a gift that gives twice. Give to your loved one, a handmade beaded cross or nativity set, or a certificate for a week’s worth of clean water. When you do, your gift helps someone in need – a hungry family, a struggling child, a Third World artisan. Your giving can transform the world!
October 24-27 | Juarez | Adult / Family Trip
More Information and Registration HERE!
Operación Abrigo is an ecumenical ministry that brings together nearly three decades of ministry serving the people of Juarez, Mexico. Over the past 30 years, we have partnered together in building thousands of cinder-block homes, five churches, a medical clinic, and a community center for families living on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez.
Serving one family at a time, we are partnering together to transform lives on both sides of the border. Custer Road has served with OA many times. We have a summer trip for young adults led by Rev. Tim Morrison and have a fall trip open to everyone.
UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief)
UMCOR’s work of alleviating human suffering around the world includes disaster relief and supplies, disaster risk reduction, and humanitarian development. It also relates to the Global Ministries’ unit on health. UMCOR operates in the United States in collaboration with relief teams organized by annual (regional) conferences. On the international level, it works through partner organizations and, at times, its own country offices, depending on need. Custer Road UMC regularly works with UMCOR for relief efforts during catastrophes to people who lack ready access.
If you’d like to contribute, you can do so online at UMCOR, or through the CRUMC Website and designate the gift for UMCOR and a Specific Advance if needed.
Living Water International is a Christian organization dedicated to helping communities acquire desperately needed clean water and to experience “living water”- the gospel of Jesus Christ – which alone satisfies the deepest thirst. Imagine a well – that WE PAY FOR AND BUILD WITH THE HANDS OF OUR OWN CHURCH MEMBERS – that will gush with clean, life-giving water and sustain generations for years to come. Living Water International helps communities in developing countries create sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene programs.
Imagine having nothing but dirty, bacteria-infested water to quench your thirst. To wash your clothes in. To cook with. To bathe in. And to give to your children to drink. No one should live this way. But more than 884 million people around the world do. Enough is enough. Because no human being should live this way.
Custer Road Mission Teams have traveled to Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador since 2016 to dig a water well and provide hygiene lessons.
To get more information about trips, contact Tony and Elizabeth Hairston via email HERE.
Dresses are sent through “Send Hope” to Honduras, as well as with mission team going to Haiti and Guatemala. The group is open anyone who is interested in sewing or helping in other ways. Ready-made easy to sew dress kits are available, as well as instructions on how to sew the dresses.
Questions? Contact Kay Henderson 214-538-0148 or Bobbie Trowbridge or 972-816-9225.
Custer Road is partnering with World Renew and the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church and UMCOR in Rolling Fork, MS to help rebuild homes (and therefore lives) that were damaged or destroyed by a tornado in March 2023.
If you have questions, please contact:
Jennifer Wagner 972-951-0189
For more information, visit:
World Renew
Mississippi Disaster Response
Cary Christian Center
Drives / Collections
Sunday October 27 | 8am-1:00pm | Custer Road UMC Parking Lot
Custer Road UMC host blood drives several times throughout the year with Carter BloodCare. There is always a need for blood!
Questions? Contact Lynda Starnes, Blood Drive Coordinator 214-394-8245.
You can donate at any Carter BloodCare site at any time. Be sure to tell them you are from Custer Road UMC. We have a credit account, and should any of our family members have the need for blood, they can use credits from this account to assist in the payment for their blood use.
God’s Pantry exists to extend a helping hand to the needy providing food to anyone who is facing circumstances beyond their control. God’s Pantry is a faith-based non-profit that has an open-door policy. They have never run out of food nor charged for any of their services. Volunteers distribute 10,000+ pounds of donated food each month. People Who Love People serves outside on Monday and Thursday mornings.
Monetary Donations: Monetary donations for rent, utilities and purchasing perishable foods are also needed. Click HERE to give online (indicate God’s Pantry on the memo line). You can also drop a check in the offering plates/boxes on Sundays or at the Custer Road Welcome Desk during church office hours.
Food Donations: Canned meats & fish, Mac &cheese in boxes, Cake mixes, 1 lb. bags of beans & rice (food donations can be dropped off at 1896 Avenue K in Plano.
Volunteer: God’s Pantry is located at 1896 Avenue K in Plano. Volunteers are needed on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 9:00 AM for sorting. Sign-up to serve at God’s Pantry HERE.
Head Start is a federally funded child development program designed to provide comprehensive services to preschool children from low-income families. Children and families in Head Start receive comprehensive services that include health, dental, nutrition, family wellness, education, disabilities, and family services.
Sweatsuit Collection | Sunday Sept 22 – Sunday Oct 6
Visit the table in the Commons Sundays, Sept 22-29, to choose from 150 Head Start “hands” with the kid’s size and gender. Purchase a new sweatsuit, socks and underwear, bag them with the “hand” and drop it in the missions bin by October 6.
Custer Road UMC collects school supplies in July and August that benefit: Summer Lunch Program backpacks, teachers and students at Carpenter MS and Christie & Thomas Elementary Schools with needed supplies, and Teacher Appreciation gifts.
Every teacher at each campus will receive a back to school gift from our church. Students who attend our Summer Lunch Program will receive a bag with basic school supplies on the last day of the program.
Custer Road Missions Volunteers
Let us how your class, group, or you have been serving in missions. You can also share stories and photos from your volunteer activities. |
