Graduation 2010 in our 125th Year

On Sunday, we celebrated the 2010 graduation class of over 100 men from Helping Up Mission’s Spiritual Recovery Program.  Men join our Program every week and graduate 52 weeks later – typically 2 men completing each week of the year.  In our Friday chapel service, on his one year anniversary, he receives a certificate for finishing the final phase of our Program. 

Then, every year we have a formal graduation ceremony to celebrate all who completed their 12 months during the last year.  As in previous years, this year’s celebration was also held at Martin’s West with over 1,400 people in attendance.  Graduates, their families and friends, alumni and the extended Helping Up Mission family all joined together to recognize each man and the spiritual journey on which he has embarked. 

The banquet is also a time for Helping Up Mission to say thank you to all those who have supported us over the past year.  Graduates thank their family and friends, while the Mission thanks all those who supported our work as a whole.  Helping Up Mission has always been funded by the support of good people all over the Baltimore area, without whose help we would not be in existence today.  At our graduation banquet we show them what their investment produced in the lives of men and their families and we say thanks. 

And just for the record, the band, choir, ushers, greeters and table attendants at the banquet are composed of our underclassmen.  We hope our friends who join us for this year’s graduation were so pleased by what they saw in both our graduates and undergraduates that they want to continue being involved in ongoing support for the next year! 

The theme of our 2010 Graduation Banquet was Transforming Broken Men, Building a Better Baltimore.  Here at Helping Up Mission we offer men hope, answers and empowerment by introducing them to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  It has worked for us and we are just passing it along to the next guy!  Then, as transformed men together, we are committed to building a better Baltimore in which we can all live, work, worship and raise our families.

This year’s graduation was a wonderful success and was particularly meaningful because 2010 is our 125th year of operation.  We are so proud of our 2010 graduates and we are thrilled that their day was such an historic one.  Thinking about our history, it was also thrilling to see our alumni from the past two decades continue in their own spiritual recovery walk. 

Finally, as the Spiritual Life Director of Helping Up Mission and the guy is spends more time with our men in class than anyone else, I want to say thank you to the wonderful people of greater Baltimore who continue to invest in the lives of broken men looking for transformation. Together, we really can build a better Baltimore. 

Sincerely,

Pastor Gary Byers

Spiritual Life Director