Pastor Cooley said they were so shocked that the school secretary called Wounded Warrior to make sure there hadn’t been a mistake. He said a WWP representative assured her that “religious” was indeed on their banned list.

A Christian church and school in Florida are devastated after they said Wounded Warrior Project refused to accept their fund raising effort because it was “religious in nature.”

“We were heartbroken,” said Wallace Cooley, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church and Academy in Fort Pierce, Fla.

Cooley said they had already paid a $100 registration fee to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project and were about to launch the campaign when they received an email from the organization.

The church had planned on taking up a special offering on the last Sunday in February and students were collecting money from family and friends.

“We must decline the opportunity to be the beneficiary of your event due to our fundraising event criteria, which doesn’t allow community events to be religious in nature,” read an email from the WWP community events team. “Please note your registration fee will be refunded within the next 7-10 business days.”

WWP said as a nonpartisan organization they cannot accept event fundraising from companies “in which the product or message is religious in nature.”

Pastor Cooley said they were so shocked that the school secretary called Wounded Warrior to make sure there hadn’t been a mistake. He said a WWP representative assured her that “religious” was indeed on their banned list.

“We had to tell our children and parents we can’t give to the Wounded Warrior Project,” Pastor Cooley told Fox News. “We are second-class citizens now because we are people of faith.”

A Wounded Warrior told Fox News they would look into the matter. The organization did not respond to subsequent telephone calls.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on radio.foxnews.com—however, the original URL is no longer available.]