They are helping struggling families.
A Georgia church has made a significant impact by erasing over $5.7 million in medical debt through a generous Christmas charity initiative. Peavine Baptist Church in Rock Springs donated nearly $25,000, which helped eliminate medical debt for more than 4,200 individuals in northwest Georgia. Pastor Joel Southerland shared with his congregation that medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S., affecting one in four Americans and having long-lasting effects on credit and financial stability.
The church has a long-standing tradition of supporting various charitable causes during the holiday season, and this year’s focus was on alleviating medical debt. In addition to medical debt relief, the church has previously funded initiatives such as foster care support, local food pantries, and a pro-life pregnancy care center. The idea for the “12 Days of Christmas” charity project originated from a congregation survey, which guided the church in choosing impactful projects to support.
Peavine Baptist partnered with RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit organization founded in 2014, to carry out the medical debt forgiveness. RIP Medical Debt collaborates with churches to raise funds that are then used to purchase medical debt at a fraction of its value, and they subsequently forgive the debt. This model has been successfully used by other churches, such as The Altar Fellowship in Johnson City, Tennessee, which raised $50,000 last year to cancel $8 million in debt.
In related news, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently announced a new rule aimed at improving consumer protection regarding medical debt. The new regulation removes approximately $49 billion in medical debt from the credit reports of around 15 million Americans, recognizing that medical debt has minimal predictive value for assessing a person’s ability to repay other types of debt. CFPB Director Rohit Chopra emphasized that those facing illness should not have their financial well-being further jeopardized, highlighting the rule’s potential to prevent debt collectors from exploiting the system.