Hampstead Eats Food Truck Festival a Great Success!

The weather cooperated (no rain!) and the annual Hampstead Eats Food Truck Festival was wonderful! More than 600 people came and almost $4,000 was raised.

A total of 243 pounds of food (equal to about 203 meals)

and $214.02 (equal to approximately 401 meals), was donated to the NH Food Bank at the event.

Thanks to Roxanne who coordinated the event, and all who helped!

Worship This Week

The service will be livestreamed

Thanks to Julian for helping us continue to offer live streaming!

Please join us in the Sanctuary or online

at 10am this Sunday for the

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Please join us for coffee hour after the service.

We hope you will join us in person or online.

The service will be live streamed through

Facebook Live here

or on 3CX here

artwork: "Inner Streams Resurrection" © Mary Southard

www.ministryofthehearts.org. Used with permission.

Congratulations to Annabel Nolan

on winning the NHUCC

Earth Day Art Contest!

In honor of Earth Day, during Sunday School a few weeks again our young people drew pictures to describe how they could help our planet. Last Sunday, Annabel shared her drawing during the Children's message.

The Contest, sponsored by the Environmental Justice Mission Group of the New Hampshire Conference of the United Church of Christ, received 47 entries from seven churches and one school in Agra, India. Annabel won in her age group!

The winning art work will be on display at the NH Conference Office, and at Horton Center, as well as several churches. All winners also receive a scholarship to Horton Center to spend a week at their camp this summer!

Click here to see all the winners! Great job, Annabel!

Annabel's drawing:

Pastor Kathy Continuing Ed

Pastor Kathy will be out of the office from Thursday, May 4th-Wednesday, May 10th, for a week of continuing education that is provided by her covenant with HCC. She will be attending a retreat during that time.



The Rev. Linda Lea Snyder will be celebrating worship on May 7th and offering needed pastoral care.

Saturday, May 13th, 9am-12pm

The Operation Team requests your help to do some Spring cleaning, both inside and outside the church. Bring work gloves and tools, and your favorite cleaning supplies. Share some fellowship with fellow members and other volunteers.

A list of specific tasks in addition to general clean-up is being prepared. All are welcome to assist. Many hands make short work. Thank you!

Book Discussion Series in May/June

All are invited to join our upcoming book discussion featuring "Tattoos on the Heart," by Fr. Gregory Boyle. This hope-filled and spiritually uplifting book celebrates the strength, compassion and humanity of people often ostracized in our society.

This group, led by Pastor Kathy, will be meeting for five weeks beginning Thursday, May 18th in the Davis Room (upstairs from the sanctuary) at 10am.

If you are interested in learning more, signing up, or getting a book, please contact Pastor Kathy or the office.

COFFEE HOUR SET-UP & SUPPLIES

To all those wonderful volunteers who set up our Coffee Hour table each Sunday after worship:

THANK YOU! 

You can tell by the smiles on the faces of people, the level of enthusiastic “chatter” that "bubbles up”, and the seeming reluctance of people to leave each Sunday morning that our Coffee Hour is a real “hit” with our congregation – and rightly so! 

We are looking for more people to help with this wonderful ministry a few times a year. You will be trained and most supplies (except the goodies) are provided. We still do not have anyone signed up for Sunday, May 21st (worship being held in Hadley Hall).

Please contact Judy Dobson or the office to help out on the 21st or on a more regular basis.

We are only able to offer coffee hour because we have folks willing to help out.

Please consider helping our congregation in this way.

From Our Missions Team:

A Word from Peace & Justice

The housing market in New Hampshire is worse than previously reported according to the Concord Monitor and New Hampshire Public Radio.

It has been clear for three decades that there is a “housing mismatch” where demand far exceeds supply for housing in New Hampshire. We last shared that the state will need 60,000 new units to meet the expected demand by 2030 and that increases to 90,000 to meet 2040 demand.

The articles site four reasons that the shortage of housing is so severe – the challenges for home ownership, the availability of rental units, affordability of housing, and the aging demographics of the state.

New data that takes into account the increase (pandemic related) in the number of people buying second homes reveals more strain on the availability of primary residence units than originally thought. With this consideration the estimated number of new housing units needed by 2040 increases to 110,000. Costs have increases precipitously – rent increases of 94% and house selling prices by 111% while income has increased by 73%. And as the population ages these factors of availability and cost suggests that many more residents will “age in place” which exacerbates the availability of housing for younger families. The seniors are not downsizing as much and keep the larger family homes off the market.

The article then lists an array of solutions that the state is applying and others to be considered. They range from grants to developers to changes in building codes to allow for increased housing density. 

Steeple Lighting

Steeple lit the week of

May 1st - 7th



In Memory of

Stanley Lapham

May Birthdays

Rev. Kathy 5/1

Peter T. 5/16

Conor J. 5/20

Starr S. 5/24

John F. 5/26

Lester K. 5/27

Bea R. 5/27

Rick L. 5/28

Jessica C. 5/31

Scam Emails & Texts

Emails and Texts are often sent, saying they are from Pastor Kathy or another staff member. She (or the HCC staff) will never send out a generic email/text--she'll address it to your name. She will never ask you for money/gift cards over email nor via a text.

Also, any email from Pastor Kathy will always have her signature line on the bottom with her phone number/address.

If in doubt, please contact the church office or Pastor Kathy.

New Hampshire Conference UCC Weekly News

We thought you might enjoy reading the NH Conference UCC weekly newsletter. You can read it with this link.

5/2/2023 Newsletter

Each week, we will update this section of our Weekly Word with the new link

for the current newsletter.

Food Drive to Support

Saint Anne Ecumenical

Food Pantry



 Currently in need of cereal (no Cheerios), coffee, salad dressings,

pasta sauce, granola bars, Spam, boxes of crackers, grated cheese, mayo

 and ketchup.



Please drop off any donations in the foyer of Hadley Hall

Please, no expired items.

Thank you for all your support!