Church’s Africa mission benefit features emigre from Liberia

Wilmot Collins fled war in native land, now a mayor in U.S.

Westminster Presbyterian in Albany has sponsored projects for years in Liberia, Ghana and Sierra Leone, specifically bringing clean water and personal protective equipment to villages where no one can afford either.

Recently, Westminster helped provide six toilets and a safe well for one community.

In Ghana, the church helped repair the roof of a village school. And the congregation has provided funds for handwashing stations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Westminster also supports the Mooncatcher Project, which makes masks and sanitary napkins for women.

Westminster’s African Family Night fundraiser will be held via Youtube from 7 to 8 p.m. on Nov. 7. The goal is to raise $10,000. For the virtual event, Westminster snagged a fascinating guest speaker: Wilmot Collins, who fled Liberia and became a U.S. citizen and the first Black elected mayor in the state of Montana’s history, which dates back to its admission to the United States in 1889. ( While it was still a territory, a Black barber in Helena — who was also a licensed distributor of Frederick Douglass’ newspaper — beat two mayoral candidates in 1870).

Collins can share what life was like when he was growing up on the Firestone Tire company ’s vast rubber plantation in Liberia. He attended the University of Liberia. He lost two brothers in a horrific civil war, and Collins and wife, Maddie, came to the U.S. After serving in the National Guard and the Reserves, Collins worked as a youth counselor, the Department of Homeland Security and child protective services in Montana. He sings in his Helena church choir.

Collins’ life in America’s West has not always been smooth.

His first Montana home was spray painted with “KKK,” he told the Missoula Current. He marched in one of Montana’s Black Lives Matters protests after the killing of George Floyd.

Donations made by check to Westminster’s Africa Fund can be mailed to the church office at 85 Chestnut St., Albany (ZIP code 12210) with Africa Mission written on the memo line.

For information on how to attend the online fundraising event, visit https:// www.wpcalbany.org/singlepost/westminster-s-africanfamily-night