Missions & Outreach
Faith In Action: St. Paul’s Missions & Outreach Working With King George Church of God. Join Us!
The Missions and Outreach Committee was active this year with our regular projects Love Thy Neighbor, Haiti Micah, Little Ark Food Bank and assistance to a few individuals. We looked for ways to enhance our local outreach effort beyond the band-aids of emergency assistance. In that vein, we are talking with the Faith In Action Ministry at the King George Church of God. As we move forward on working with them, we hope that you will be interested in volunteering with us.
The
Faith in Action Ministry (
FIA
)
of the King George Church of God is doing what most churches do – attempting to respond to the needs of poorer people in our community when they approach us to ask for emergency assistance for rent, utilities, gas or food. As the program helped, FIA staff confirmed, as many have, that most people who come with this type of request need much greater support if they are to get out of the poverty trap. Julie Carro, who runs the program, began to look more deeply into their lives. As a result, she and some of her fellow parishioners have put together a program that actually rivals Social Services. In fact, our local Social Services office often calls on FIA
.
The Missions & Outreach Committee invited Julie, along with Tom Coye of the Link program in Northumberland and Lancaster Counties, to meet with us. Julie described a program that is effectively responding to the holistic needs o f clients but requires extensive hours and needs a larger network to support the level of need. The Link program developed a very effective network of churches, social agencies/program and some businesses, which can respond to quick needs. Tom wants to expand into more coaching and a more holistic response. Julie and Tom were excited about working together building better networking in King George and better resource identification and whole-person response by the Link network.
At St. Paul’s, we are discussing how we might collaborate with FIA to enhance our response to the need and to support the incredible work that FIA
is doing. We, too, want to stop giving only band-aids. The FIA team do two-hour interviews with clients resulting in a clearer picture of what support and resources are needed. This program requires extensive hours to address the needs presented. We agreed to have FIA train a few of us in doing the two-hour interview. We hope to take some of the load off the staff for this time-consuming piece and to learn more about the resource archive that FIA has. We want to encourage others in our congregation to join us. The time involved would probably not be more than a couple of interviews a week and the more volunteers we have, the less often anyone has to do it.
Julie and Carolyne Ashton have been talking about the need to get more churches engaged so that we have a more holistic approach throughout the county and maximize resources and time by sharing. We are also developing a survey to go out to all faith communities in King George, with a follow-up telephone call for non-responders, to assess how churches are meeting these individual needs. We are looking for any who are interested in building a more collaborative, non-denominational community-coalition like the
Link
program has. If we could do something like this in King George, it has the potential to make a significant change in our response to poverty. Poverty is often hidden in this county as is homelessness, but the statistics tell us it is there in spades. This is a wonderful opportunity to show a ministry of faith to our community and improving the lives of our neighbors. If you are interested in more information or being trained to help, contact anyone on the Committee for their thoughts on this effort. Members of the Committee are Carolyne Ashton, Chair, the Brunsons, the Hartmans, the Taczaks, Gayle Hock and Laurence Thayer. We would love to add you as a member. It’s a fun group!
Volunteer Opportunities with Love Thy Neighbor
Love They Neighbor is always in need of volunteers and Missions and Outreach members encourage you to consider filling in one of these roles once a month or every other month. Here are the needs.
·
Event Day – Any time frame from 12:00 to 5:00 volunteering in areas provided throughout the event. We like volunteers to put in at least 2 hours. Serving in several different areas or focusing on one area at a time.
Love Thy Neighbor
will provide training for any position. Areas for work are helping in the kitchen with meal preparation, serving meals in the dining room, assisting patrons with their shopping and helping them take their bags to their cars.
·
Assistance to Hygiene Coordinator – organize and inventory hygiene between events and distribute to patrons on event day.
·
Resource Coordinator – provide information to patrons on area resources available. Keep updated on services being offered in immediate and surrounding areas. Set up table on event day for the resource you are sharing.
·
Sign Placement – place sign at Citizen Center the Monday before the event and remove after the event. Place yard signs in designated areas.
·
Community outreach – goes out into the community the Friday and or Saturday before the event and hands out and posts flyers. This would be an excellent activity for a church group.
·
Prayer Support - pray with patrons during event day and socialize with the patrons providing support and love throughout the day.
·
Food Delivery and Return – provide transportation of food and supplies from the warehouse (Classy Décor Bldg, Dahlgren) to the Citizen Center and return after the event.
·
WAWA pickup and delivery – pick up donations 2 to 4 times a week and take them to the warehouse. Place product in bags to be distributed at the end of the week. On Friday we deliver the items to the 4 county schools.
