Gray United Methodist Church will host its Second Annual Hope to Walk Dinner Auction on Friday evening, Sept. 15. Proceeds will go to the grassroots Hope to Walk mission to provide affordable prosthetic legs to amputees in developing countries.
Catered by Carrabba’s Italian Grill, the dinner will begin at 6 p.m. at the church, located at 2108 Oak St. beside the Appalachian Fairgrounds.
Tickets are $20 per person and will help provide the special prosthetics designed and manufactured at a fraction of the cost through the Hope to Walk organization co-founded by Gray UMC’s Michael Mabry.
Mabry, who grew up in the church and always had a heart for helping others, was a first-year medical student when he traveled to Guatemala to deliver a prosthetic leg to a young boy and encountered 30 other people who had heard of the special delivery and lined up with the hope of also receiving new legs.
In 2014, Mabry met his Hope to Walk partner Phil Johnson, a man with more than 30 years experience in prosthetics, who shared Mabry’s desire to help and traveled with him to Honduras to assess the need.
It was on that five-day trip that the men met more than 50 patients in need of prosthetic legs and recognized that Honduras was where their Hope to Walk mission would begin.
Together the men developed a prosthetic leg that could be produced at a cost of about $100 and have been working since then to train and equip mission clinics around the globe to manufacture and deliver them.
A proud supporter of Hope to Walk, Gray UMC is inviting anyone interested in learning more about the mission to meet Mabry at Friday’s dinner and to accept his offer to discuss the mission with their church or community group as well.
Submitted by Sue Guinn Legg