Faith Group 4 Action: Ministers work ‘to make our community even better’

The group of Christian ministers held a luncheon with stakeholders Tuesday to discuss ways they are making differences in the community.

The group also announced new supportive partnerships.

“We’re a collective of ministers who are concerned about our community,” said Pastor Todd Brown, one of the FG4A members.

“We’re concerned in such a way that we’ve come together to do something to make our community even better than it is right now,” he added.

He said the group’s mission is centered in Jesus Christ and quoted passages from Isaiah 61 and Luke 4.

“As a collective of pastors and ministers, everything that we are doing is to make Orangeburg all of what it is God wants it to be,” Brown said.

The group aims to be active in improving Orangeburg’s health, education, business, law enforcement and faith communities.

Some of those improvements are happening in local schools, according to Orangeburg County School District Superintendent Dr. Shawn Foster.

“They’ve been able to really, really be engaged with our students,” he said. Ministers often eat lunch in schools with students and mentor them.

Foster said the FG4A ministers are committed to helping students not just publicly, but mostly behind-the-scenes.

Bishop Dr. Hayes Gainey, of FG4A, explained that he and other pastors have talked with Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School students during their lunch period “to let them know that they have a role to play and it’s not about violence, but about their education.”

Gainey and the Rev. Jerome Anderson are the visionaries of the organization.

FG4A is planning to host a three-day non-violence summit next year. It will be led by the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office and Orangeburg Department of Public Safety.

Congressman James E. Clyburn’s Constituent Services Supervisor John Rickenbacker was the event’s keynote speaker.

“I’m so happy for what this group of ministers is doing,” Rickenbacker said.

“Never have I seen pastors come together like they did in the 1960s,” he said.

St. Matthews Mayor Helen Carson said she’s hoping Calhoun County will soon have a group similar to FG4A.

Also at the luncheon, two men announced their partnerships with FG4A:

• Shaun Golden, a long-time basketball coach and founder of non-profit group Golden Opportunity, noted that he’s been using the organization’s products to help with fundraisers.

He’ll donate a portion of those products’ proceeds to FG4A.

• Entrepreneur Anderson “Jackie” Glover, Carson’s brother, discussed the Verses Collection.

The Verses Collection is a group of high-quality dress shirts available for purchase online.

The company’s motto is, “The shirt that tithes.”

Glover noted that 10 percent of the South Carolina sales of Verses shirts will be donated to FG4A.

A Bible verse reference is stitched on the back of each shirt’s collar.