Scott County Today

For the 10th consecutive year, Christmas arrived early for Huntsville Middle and Huntsville Elementary School students _ thanks to another year of remarkable charity by Grace Baptist Church of Knoxville.

About 50 members of that church arrived at the school Dec. 7, bringing with them Bibles, toys and clothes for more than 700 Huntsville children _ along with plenty of smiles.

“The little ones have a ball,” project coordinator Diane Parker said as she directed volunteers who built large mounds of gifts that greeted the students.

“It’s a blessing to see that big truck unloading,” said Grace Missions director Neil Arwood, whose church annually collects donations of new toys and coats for two weeks prior to the mission trip here. “You see a lot of families _ kids with their grandparents, husbands with their wives. This gives our kids a chance to see that not everyone is as fortunate as they are. They’re serving the Lord at an early age.”

About 10 of the Grace volunteers were students themselves who had made arrangements to join the mission trip.

Grace Baptist Church made the arrangements to provide the gifts through another Knoxville charity, Mission of Hope.

Arwood says his church would like to partner with a Scott County church in the future.

“We plan to continue being part of this, but the ideal situation would also involve a local church. That would enable us to minister to the kids all 52 weeks of the year. There are times when the students express an interest in spiritual matters; but as it is now, we’ll not see these kids again until next year.”

Interested individuals can contact Arwood at (865) 691-8886 or by email at narwood@gracebc.org.[

The timeless music of Elvis Presley will be used to raise funds for the TIER program in three Scott County schools in late January.

Local singer Larry Davis, whose impersonations of the gifted Presley have entertained crowds at several fund-raising events in the region, is scheduled to provide an Elvis Presley Music concert Jan. 27.

The Sunday afternoon event will be held at Scott High School. Proceeds from the event will go toward the TIER (Teaching Individuals Educational Requisites) middle-school programs at Burchfield, Huntsville, and Winfield.

Another gifted vocalist, Claudia Tillman, will provide opening songs at the concert. Tickets for the event will be on sale in January at the Burchfield, Huntsville and Winfield Middle Schools.