A North Carolina congregation discovered that one issue bridges its usual political disagreements.
An effort to clear medical debt ended up helping 1,631 neighbors, as Trinity Moravian Church raised more than $17,000 and used it to eliminate over $2.2 million in medical bills.
What happened?
At Trinity Moravian Church near Winston-Salem, the Rev. John Jackman said debates over issues such as immigration and student loans can divide the congregation. Medical debt, however, has had the opposite effect.
According to NPR, the church's latest medical-debt drive was its eighth and falls under an initiative it calls the Debt Jubilee Project.
The roughly 200-member church worked with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt to target bills across Forsyth County.
The fundraiser brought in more than $17,000 and canceled over $2.2 million in medical debt because unpaid accounts can be bought for pennies on the dollar when creditors do not expect to recover most of what is owed.
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Jackman said support came easily from church members across the political divide.
"This is the easiest money I've ever raised," he said, per NPR. "All I do is tell people what we're doing, and they write me a check."
The effort began during the COVID-19 pandemic after Jackman repeatedly heard from people whose hospital stays had triggered cascading financial troubles.
Why does it matter?
Medical debt remains one of the most widespread financial burdens in the United States.
Roughly 100 million adults nationwide carry healthcare debt of some kind, according to KHN and NPR figures. More than half of U.S. adults have experienced it at some point.
For many families, that debt is not the result of reckless spending. It comes from getting sick.
Church member Catherine Coe, who works in a hospital system's accounting department, said, "We're all just one medical bill from financial ruin."
Terri Mabe, a longtime attendee, described how gaps in work can collide with illness, leaving people with bills they simply cannot afford to pay.
What's being done?
Rather than relying on large gifts, Trinity's approach turns many small donations into major relief by working with a nonprofit that can acquire medical debt at steep discounts and erase it for local families.
The church's first campaign in 2022 aimed to raise $5,000 to cancel roughly $500,000 in unpaid bills.
It hit that target within six weeks, with most gifts coming in under $50.
"One of our ideas is that we cannot fix everything, but we have to fix what we can in the place where we're planted," Jackman said.
After the latest campaign, the church marked the moment with a Jubilee ceremony. Jackman held up the names of county residents whose debts were gone, then set the list alight while scouts popped confetti and the congregation cheered.
"There isn't a political divide when it comes to medical debt," Coe said, per NPR. "It all brings us together."
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