Pastor Stephen Hayes of Covenant Church, a Dallas-based megachurch, knew what it was like to have medical debt. As told by Fox News, He spent 12 days in intensive care as a teenager after being struck by a car and falling into a coma. He woke up from the coma – but his family had lots of escalating medical bills. His church at the time prayed for him and helped pay the debt.
This year for Easter, Hayes wanted to help do the same for families in their church’s community. Covenant Church teamed up with nonprofit group RIP Medical Debt – a debt collecting group turned debt forgivers – who help acquire unpaid medical debt at reduced rates and then forgive it.
Hayes and Covenant Church donated $100K, which helped pay off a total of $10,551,618 in medical debt for 4,229 families in the Dallas area.
A goal in the project was to help veterans and their families, so the church helped locate every veteran in the greater Dallas area facing unpaid medical debt along with other individuals and families to help them out.
