Meredith Aldis | Broadcast Intern

Church Under the Bridge hit its 25 year marker over the weekend and to celebrate Mission Waco passed out 74 pairs of shoes to the homeless.

Once a year, Mission Waco offers dignity to those in our streets by raising funds from the community that allows the homeless to pick out their own choice of shoes in a local retail store. The shoes were distributed at the Mission Waco Meyer Center and that is where the walk for the homeless began.

“These are real people struggling in our own communities,” said Jimmy Dorrell, co-founder and Executive Director of Mission Waco.

The walk is a 1.2 mile educational and prayer path that stops at local sites. The first stop was at Compassion Ministries and the walk continued to Caritas, My Brothers Keeper, the Gospel Cafe, VA Regional, First Baptist Church and the Salvation Army.

They finished the walk at the bridge and the worship service began. The Church Under the Bridge Dancers had a special performance for the 25th anniversary. They each wore outfits that represented people from different cultures all coming together.

“The video we are copying from, everyone is from a different race like Jamaican and African, so that’s what were are representing, each country,” said Mya Mayfield, Mission Waco dancer.

Since January 2017, the homeless count in Waco was 221 people. Jimmy, Janet and the entire Mission Waco staff work to help those people and reduce that number each year.

Church Under the Bridge started about 25 years ago when Jimmy and Janet met with five homeless guys at Taco Cabana and ate breakfast with them.

They continued to meet every week until the homeless guys invited Jimmy and Janet under their bridge to lead a bible study. Twenty-five years later, there are about 300 people at most services.