Project Connect to benefit families in need Friday in Sikeston

SIKESTON — Mark your calendars for a new event that is hitting Sikeston.

Project Connect will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25 at the Sikeston First United Methodist Church, located at 1307 N. Main St.

Project Connect unites families in need to a variety of community resources.

And some of those resources include but are not limited to free haircuts, Bootheel Behavioral Health information and services, mental health information and services, education enrollment with the Delta Area Economic Opportunity Corp., legal services, to name a few, and even a sack lunch will be provided to the first 300 attendees.

First United Methodist Church Pastor Jennifer Moxley has served as a brainchild for the new event.

“We have a space here and wanted to be able to use the building for the ministry, and inviting people who offer free services, to have them all here so people who need things don’t have to drive all over town,” Moxley said. “They do this in Cape [Girardeau]; Community Partnerships runs Project Hope, so myself and a team of folks went out about six months ago and met with Community Partnerships and [they] told us how they did this event.”

So, Moxley and her team took the foundational variables and applied it to the event they wanted, including the name.

“We changed the name because there are a lot of things named ‘hope’ in Sikeston, and really the point is you are connecting people to the services that are available, so it kind of made sense to call it Project Connect,” Moxley said. “We took the model and ran with it.”

The response from area providers has been impressive.

“We reached out to various organizations and sent out a lot of invitations to people, and now we have 18 organizations committed,” Motley said. “The importance for us is we want to help people in our community. They need legal services; they need medical care. The importance was to bring it all together so they could be connected to the things that raise quality of life.”

The Southeast Missouri Food Bank Mobile also will be in attendance, which includes the Food Pantry, SNAP and medical assistance.

“It is a well-oiled machine where people drive through,” Moxley said of Mobile. “What we will ask folks to do is, we will have people out here directing traffic. If people are getting Food Pantry items, we will ask them to get in line, and then if they want to stay for everything, which we hope they will, we will direct them to parking. There is a ton of stuff here, and it is very exciting.”

Moxley said she expects attendees to begin lining up an hour early, especially for the Food Pantry.

Planning, inviting and other logistics took about four months.

Moxley sat down with her church team and began the brainstorming process to decide on the appropriate providers.

“We sent out letters, probably in June, to service providers,” Moxley said. “It was a lot of word-of-mouth, and in the last couple of weeks, I have been contacted by people [asking to] be a part of it. That has been really cool. I am so thankful it has taken off in this kind of way.”

Sack lunches will be provided for those who attend but arrive early.

“We have lunch for 300. We are hoping for around 300 [people], or so,” Moxley said.

The outdoor children’s area will be open and available, and a Spanish translator will be available.