Desperation Church recently partnered with the non-profit organization RIP Medical Debt to purchase and forgive more than $2.87 million in unpaid medical bills.

Through that valuable partnership, the church forgave $2,873,390.75 of medical debt and helped 2,009 struggling, low-income families in 57 counties around the state, including 58 alone in Cullman County.

The average abolished debt per county factored to $1,430.26.

The debt purchased had to meet a certain criteria — people who are two times below the poverty line, people with five percent or more of their annual income going toward medical bills, and people who are financially insolvent — and Desperation Church purchased that debt after raising $20,000.

The families who were aided will be informed in the next few weeks about their forgiven debt.

“We just wanted these people to know that we love them, and that Jesus loves them,” said Lead Pastor Andy Heis. “We wanted to help people with their medical debt, because we understand that it can cause a lot of fear, stress and anxiety. And it hurts credit scores. We reached more people that we thought. We were 100 percent pleased with how everything turned out.”