The more than 300 employees at the new Walmart at the corner of Brown Bridge and Salem roads were greeted with gift bags Tuesday evening, courtesy of several members from Salem United Methodist Church.

The bags contained candy and an invitation to attend Salem United that said "Visitors are a great gift from God," said church member Carol Paschal.

"We had a planning session at the church a month ago, and the whole emphasis of that session was to plan ways to reach out to the community in terms of letting people know about our church and welcoming them to our church if they're new in the area," Pashcal said.

"One of the ideas was to reach out to the new Walmart employees since the store is planning to open March 14. We thought it would be a nice thing to do for Walmart, being a block from our church, and also meet 300 people at once. We care about them being here. This is showing God's love; faith in action. We need to get out there and do something, not just the people inside the doors of our church."

The people who helped put the bags together were Carol and Dan Paschal, Diana Saltzgiver, Paul and Sherry Parker, Chester and Mary Walters, Carol and Phil Standard and Mary Garner. The pastor of Salem United is the Rev. Rhoda Howell.