Meet this Year's Troy Treasure

TRIP is pleased to announce that this year's winner of the much-coveted 2010 Troy Treasure award will go to Pastor Willie D. Bacote of The Missing Link Street Ministry Mission. Pastor Willie has been a long-time active proponent of families and particularly of children, especially those living in North Central Troy. He has been involved in the ministry since moving to Troy in the mid-1990’s, but never more so than in the past several years through The Missing Link Street Ministry Mission, located at 3370 Sixth Avenue.

Resulting from his deep concern for children’s safety, he has sponsored various anti-violence marches involving many of the neighborhoods’ families who are impacted by street violence. To remove guns from the streets, he created a gun buyback program that has collected over three hundred guns in the City of Troy since the program began. 

But perhaps Pastor Willie is best known for the daily ministry he and others perform by providing hot meals to children free of charge. He started the Feed A Kid Program through The Missing Link Street Ministry in North Central more than two years ago so that no child would go to bed hungry despite issues of poverty or drug/alcohol addictions in their households.  The program offers hot meals three evenings a week from 6 - 8pm, some evenings feeding close to one hundred children.

Of course, he doesn’t do this alone. There are many partners who have joined with him to feed our city's children, and to them, he -- and we -- are appreciative. For more information about how to help or to make a donation, go to www.missinglinkstreetministry.com. 

Thanks to Pastor Willie’s wonderful leadership, consistent involvement and outstanding service and the difference that he has made in the lives of thousands of families in Troy, we are proud to call him this year’s Troy Treasure. 

Pastor Willie will be honored at TRIP/RCHR”s Annual Dinner on October 20th. See www.triponline.org for details.