Former trust board member finds a new way to serve

Alber­ta Antho­ny has a big heart—a ser­van­t’s heart.

The York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive mem­ber served for 8 years on the Oper­a­tion Round Up trust board, vol­un­teer­ing hun­dreds of hours of her time. The trust board admin­is­ters par­tic­i­pat­ing YEC mem­bers’ dona­tions to the pro­gram, which has giv­en almost $2 mil­lion to local peo­ple in need and local com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions.

The time spent vet­ting appli­ca­tions for assis­tance is well worth it, Antho­ny says. Beyond the details of check­ing every appli­ca­tion, she knows her work with Oper­a­tion Round Up real­ly boils down to “help­ing peo­ple.”

Antho­ny has also helped YEC mem­bers exer­cise their right to vote by serv­ing on the co-op’s Cre­den­tials and Elec­tions Com­mit­tee, which assists with and mon­i­tors Board of Trustees elec­tions at the co-op’s annu­al meet­ing. She’ll be there again for the May 10 event.

A for­mer fifth-grade teacher at Hick­o­ry Grove-Sharon Ele­men­tary who helped hun­dreds of her pupils learn for 40 years, Antho­ny also assist­ed the local branch of the NAACP award schol­ar­ships for many years. Now, she’s found a new place to serve, although as she’ll tell you, the desire to help oth­ers all comes from the same place: from the heart, or more pre­cise­ly, from God’s love.

Ear­ly this year, Antho­ny became the first African-Amer­i­can elder at Bethes­da Pres­by­ter­ian Church in McConnells. She’s one of six new elders ordained at the his­toric church, orga­nized in 1769. She and her hus­band, James, joined Bethes­da after vis­it­ing with friends three years ago.

In a way, they were com­ing full cir­cle: Her ances­tors and her hus­band’s once sat in the bal­cony at Bethes­da. Before the Civ­il War, as was com­mon at many church­es, white parish­ioners sat in pews while their slaves wor­shipped in the bal­cony.

As they wor­shipped recent­ly from the pews, Antho­ny says she looked up, toward the bal­cony, at the sanc­tu­ary’s chan­de­lier. She did­n’t focus on the bal­cony but on the light—or, more pre­cise­ly, the one that shines on all of us. “That light, it looked like peace to me,” she says. “It’s that peace that drew us here. That’s how we got here.”

She felt it again on Sun­day, Jan. 26, at Bethes­da, when the Rev. Daniel Smoak preached from Philip­pi­ans. The mes­sage res­onat­ed with Antho­ny.

“My pas­tor spoke on joy this morn­ing and all I could think about was, the world did­n’t give it to me and the world can’t take it away from me.”

God put that joy there, Smoak remind­ed her after the ser­vice. Yes, she said, “I’ve got it here. It’s right here in my heart.”

Serv­ing others—at the church and at her co-op—keeps the joy flow­ing, she says. Point­ing to her heart, Antho­ny says, “It goes right back in there.”

By Wal­ter All­read

Would you like to serve your com­mu­ni­ty? If you’re not already par­tic­i­pat­ing, call YEC today to sign up for Oper­a­tion Round Up.
Relat­ed Top­ics:
Oper­a­tion Round Up 
Oper­a­tion Round Up Dis­po­si­tion State­ment