Special Recognition
Yorkview Community Church
Name and location: Yorkview Community Church, Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
Denomination: Independent Evangelical
Pastor: Kevin Fleetwood
Date Founded: 1997
Total Church Membership: 95
Website: www.yorkview.net
Outstanding Involvement and Effectiveness in the Fight Against AIDS:
What began in 2003 with one couple in the church and their interest in a radio ministry in Kampala, Uganda, has emerged into a church-wide commitment to education and other services for more than 600 orphans, as well as medical care for children and adults in Kampala and another community with individuals returning from refugee camps. Like David challenging Goliath, Yorkview community was determined to take on the daunting specter of AIDS in a nation hard hit by the pandemic. The result has been transformation both for the people of Uganda and the parishioners of this church.
Since 2003, this Yorkview has:
- funded, built, and stocked a medical clinic with a nurse-practitioner serving 50 people each day;
- enabled other clinics staffed by volunteer physicians and nurses from North America;
- secured donated vaccines valued at $70,000 and led two immunization programs for nearly 1,400 people;
- provided medical equipment—an ambulance, beds, and other medical supplies;
- recruited partners to purchase well-drilling equipment and training for local adults to drill a well donated to the school; and
- planted a four-acre garden/farmland that included a 400-tree orchard for the community's first source of fresh fruits and vegetables.
The church also has helped spawn a local church and the Christian community there is now viewed as a blessing that has provided compassion and care to a poor region.
Impact on the Congregation:
The impact in Yorkview has been nearly universal. Members of the congregation have made nearly 100 visits to Uganda since 2003, each personally funded and totaling about $35,000. Through networks of friendships and family, a wide range of supplies have been donated—from local math teachers bringing school supplies to the Nakyessa School to multi-national pharmaceutical companies donating products. The church keeps the image of the school and other projects in Uganda visible to the congregation throughout the year through publications, speakers, and other ways.
Pastor's Quote: “Our story is the story of a small, humble group listening to the Spirit, taking our own gifts, talents and initiative, and building partnerships locally, nationally and internationally to turn this community upside down both with hope in Christ and with the tools they need to enter their country's future as healthy, well-fed, educated and skilled members of the nation's future leadership.”
Comments from the Judges: “Great effort, with a strong understanding of empowerment of the people dealing with the impact of HIV infection in their community. Another sterling example of what a church can do in effectively giving hope to others in vast numbers far surpassing its own congregational size.”
