 Missions & Outreach |
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First & Summerfield continues to build on its deep commitment to the greater community through its involvement in the Sengbe Pieh Awards, Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers, Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, and other programs.
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| Sengbe Pieh Awards |
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First & Summerfield United Methodist Church, in conjunction with Amistad America, Inc., presents the Sengbe Pieh Award to individuals who have made a major contribution to the general welfare of the community through generous public service. Created in 2002, the Award honors Sengbe Pieh, the charis-
matic leader of the enslaved Africans aboard the cargo transport L’ Amistad. Much of their fascinating story took place in New Haven. The Amistad Incident of 1839 In 1839, 49 men, three girls and a boy were kidnaped from West Africa and sold into the transatlantic slave trade. Shackled aboard the Portuguese slave vessel Tecora, they were brought to Havana, where they were fraudulently classified as Cuban-born slaves.
 They were illegally purchased by Spaniards José Ruiz and Pedro Montez, who transferred the cap-tives to the coastal cargo schooner, L’ Amistad, bound for another part of Cuba. Three days into the journey, Sengbe Pieh, a 25-year-old Mende rice-farmer, broke free of his chains, freed his companions and armed them with cane knives. They killed the captain, forced the crew overboard and demanded that the slave master return to Africa. The Spaniard deceived them, directing the boat to Cuba, but a storm drove them along the coast, where L’ Amistad and her African “cargo” were seized as salvage by the USS Washington near Montauk Point, Long Island, and towed to New London.  The Africans were held in a New Haven jail on murder and piracy charges. Former President John Quincy Adams argued successfully on behalf of the captives before the U.S. Supreme Court. It was the first human-rights case argued on behalf of Africans in the American court system. It was
in March 1841, that the Supreme Court upheld a lower court that freed the Africans. In 1842, Sengbe Pieh and the 35 surviving Africans returned to what is present-day Sierra Leone.
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2002 Recipients
Jonathan Q. Berryman
Martha Leonard, M.D.
Rev. Bonita Grubbs
Curtis L. Patton, Ph.D.
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2003 Recipients
Jeffie R. Frazier
Rev. Ralph Lord Roy
Shelia A. Jewell
Rev. Samuel Slie
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2004 Recipients
Roy Kenneth Jetter
Winfred Rembert
Suzanne Tucker
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2005 Recipients
Willis Diggs
Robert Windom, MD
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2006 Recipients
Dr. & Mrs. Morris Wessel
Lillie Perkins
| 2007 Recipients
Dr. James Comer
Betsey Demir
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Harold Koh
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| How to Contact Us |
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| Mail: |
First & Summerfield United |
| Phone: | (203) 624-2521 |
| E-Mail: | fsmethodist@sbcglobal.net |
| Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen |
 We’ve been a long-time supporter of the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK). We serve the Soup Kitchen meal on Tuesday nights at the Parish House at Center Church, 311 Temple Street. Food preparation and service volunteers are needed. Contact Mike Clarke at 239-2839 for information.
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Joyce Gall chats with Ralph Roy, a 2003 recipient of the Sengbe Pieh Award.
 Volunteers visit and telephone the elderly and homebound. If you would like to help, please call 230-8994 or see Faye Clarke.
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| Bed Funds |
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First & Summerfield has “bed funds” —money bequeathed to pay Yale-New Haven bills of patients recommended by the pastor. Contact our pastor if you are struggling with a bill from Yale-New Haven. With other churches, we seek to improve the implementation of free care and sliding-scale programs. Each quarter, an ecumenical commit-
tee meets with Yale-New Haven to re- view those who are ineligible for other hospital programs and to approve the use of funds for people who cannot pay their bills. First & Summerfield is represented on this committee by the pastor and Maggie Carr. |