MIssion and Outreach

Helping Hands Clinic is a non-profit medical clinic providing free healthcare to the homeless and those living in poverty in our community since 1989. The clinic is located next door to First UMC and is staffed by registered nurses, advanced registered nurse practitioners, physicians, and other community service volunteers. Helping Hands also provides food, clothing, personal hygiene and survival items, education classes, psychosocial support discussion groups, and more for both men and women in need. 

Our partnership with Metcalfe Elementary has been going strong since 2017. Metcalfe serves a high percentage of children who fall well below the poverty line and is a Title 1 school located less than two miles from First UMC. Prior to the pandemic, our volunteers helped in an ongoing capacity doing a variety of things based on their interests such as reading to students, helping in PE class, testing multiplication facts, assisting with administrative and other necessary tasks. During these times of COVID, we have focused on providing materials and resources for safe in-person learning, and moral support for the staff and students.

Our sister Methodist church is located in La Moza, Cuba. Over the years, we have provided assistance and prayers for those in the church and community with such things as building a new sanctuary and kitchen, repairing hurricane damage, updating sound equipment, and sending much needed medicine and financial resources. Our support assists with La Moza’s children’s ministry, community meals, and their mission efforts to more rural areas of Cuba.  Our Methodist brothers and sisters in La Moza pray for us weekly and we pray for them as well.  Every few years, a team of First UMC folks go to Cuba to learn about the culture and build relationships.  Questions?

FUMPers is our state-licensed preschool and child care facility that provides our community with a loving, enriching, high quality, and affordable learning environment for children up to 5 years old. Our Christian values and attitudes are practiced, but in order to be a welcoming and inclusive place for all children and families in our community, specific religious doctrine is not a major emphasis of the curriculum.  For more information, visit our FUMPers web page.

Family Promise of Gainesville provides homeless children & their families with care that includes education, case management, meals, housing, and transportation until they can transition to a home of their own. First UMC shelters up to four families for a week, four times a year in our Bell Hall where we provide, in addition to their family "bedrooms", meals and other things that help all who are staying with us feel at home. For more information, please contact our Family Promise Coordinator.