A church is canceling people’s medical debt for pennies on the dollar. It wants others to join in
“In March, Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, made a stunning announcement. For pennies on the dollar, the congregation had bought up $3.3 million of medical debt belonging to 3,355 local families. With bells ringing and confetti flying, the church held a ‘debt burning’ ceremony marking the full forgiveness of these burdens. This life-changing feat was accomplished with a little more than $15,000 in donations, organized through the church’s Debt Jubilee Project in partnership with RIP Medical Debt, a New York-based nonprofit. Through this project and others like it, more churches in the US are coming together to create outsized relief for debt-strapped members of their communities. Church leaders say debt forgiveness is a modern, but very effective way to do good – and it has a firm basis in scripture.”