The Outreach Commission
OUTREACH AT GRACE CHURCH
Committee Chairs: Request publicity for your event! To help make Grace events as successful as possible, the Communications Committee has developed an online form for requesting event publicity. The form, which includes instructions for completing and submitting the request, can be found here. The Communications Committee is asking that forms be submitted six to eight weeks prior to the event to ensure adequate time for getting the word out and sharing information about the event.
The Outreach Commission
The Outreach Commission organizes the appeal and distribution of the Christmas and Easter offerings to projects that meet basic human needs, including food, clothing, and shelter and in which individual parishioners are already involved as support to their particular actions of Christian witness. The Commission also serves as the umbrella organization for other outreach projects that the parish supports, seeing to it that there are volunteers from the congregation for the Not Bread Alone soup kitchen, for the Emergency Cot Program in Northampton, and for an annual campaign to solicit donated food for the Amherst Survival Center. Grace Church also sponsors films, lectures, and discussions of national and international conflicts and human needs. If you are interested in being a member of the Commission, please contact one of the clergy.
Local Ministries:
Grace parishioners often volunteer at or contribute to the following Pioneer Valley charities:
Not Bread Alone
Not Bread Alone is a soup kitchen located at First Congregational Church in Amherst, MA. It serves meals Wednesdays and on weekends. Grace Church members volunteer on the second Saturday of every month. For additional information, please contact Chris Hoffman (hoffman@cs.umass.edu)
Amherst Survival Center
Amherst Survival Center is a regional resource providing food, clothing and community through volunteer efforts. Grace Church has an ongoing collection of food donations; and also participates is special events such as “Souper” Bowl Sunday and extra collections at the holidays.
Craig’s Doors
Craig’s Doors provides safe, caring shelter for people who are homeless, while working towards supportive housing and helping to build an improved quality of life for those who are without a home. Craig’s Doors is committed to helping people to find ways to become empowered to improve the quality of their lives through the creation of safe, respectful shelter and housing. Craig’s Place, their seasonal shelter, operates from November 1 through April 30.
Donna McCallum (donna.mccallum @gmail.com) is Grace’s current volunteer coordinator.
Interfaith Cot Shelter
The Hampshire County Interfaith Cot Shelter provides overnight shelter for adults during the coldest 6-months of the year. It opens on November 1st. The Interfaith Shelter operates in partnership with the City of Northampton and Friends of the Hampshire County Homeless.
We at Grace prepare a meal for the Shelter in Northampton (43 Center Street), once a month, November through April, for the 20 guests and five volunteers. There are several ways you can volunteer: You could make a part of a meal, such as a salad, a main dish, or a dessert to be taken in by another volunteer who would serve at the Shelter during the dinner time, about 5:45 to 7:30, or you could be a server at the shelter during that time, or you could do both as many do. We hope to gather a different team for each of the six monthly dates, sharing the joy of service as broadly as possible. Please consider joining one of the teams. The dates for us this year are as follows: November 12; December 10; January 14; February 11; March 11; and April 8. For more information or to join a team, talk to Steve McKelvey (mckelvey@isenberg.umass.edu or 413-237-3446)
Great Falls Books Through Bars
Great Falls Books Through Bars is an organization in Franklin County, MA that sends free books, resources and reading material to prisoners. There is a donation bin in the Connector at Grace Church.
Welcome Back Packs
To help ease the transition after incarceration, and to express the welcome back home of society, a few churches have gotten together to provide Welcome Back Packs to women when they are released from the correction center in Chicopee, the only women’s jail in western Mass. The back packs include toiletries, some non-perishable food, and other useful items. Please see Eliot Moss (253-9242) with any questions.
Enlacé de Familias
Enlacé de Familias generally works with residents from the downtown neighborhoods in Holyoke. These neighborhoods are made up of predominately Latino and low-income families, 99% of whom receive public assistance, Mass Health, food stamps, and/or fuel assistance. Often the focus is on families in crisis, and this can involve a number of issues. The goal is to come up with solutions for these families or refer them to someone who can. Since hurricane Maria in 2017, there has been a large increase in the number of families arriving in the area from Puerto Rico. Members of the Grace Church Community have been collecting winter hats, gloves, scarves and socks in order to help these families adjust to New England.
Global Ministries:
St. Matthieu, Haiti www.graceinhaiti.org
Our Church, Grace has been supporting a rural primary school in Haiti since 2008; we have been joined in this ministry by St James, Indian Head, MD. Find out all about this exciting and rewarding outreach at https://graceinhaiti.org.
Episcopal Relief and Development
Working in partnership with the worldwide Church, ecumenical agencies and local organizations, Episcopal Relief & Development saves lives and strengthens communities around the world.
Fourth Sunday Offerings, Christmas and Easter Collections
Grace Church has a tradition of donating collections gathered on Christmas, Easter and the fourth Sunday of each month to worthy causes suggested by the community. Grace members may apply for funding for the non-profit, social outreach organizations (local, national, international) that they are involved with or that they advocate for. The applications should be to (1) meet human needs, especially for food, clothing and shelter (2) value the spiritual needs of those they serve for respect, dignity, and freedom (3) represent balanced and diversified ways of meeting local, national, and global priorities (4) are espoused by our parishioners and, if possible, directly involve parish members in their work and (5) keep us informed of their work and provide us with basic financial information to insure accountability.
American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem (AFEDJ)
Members of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship sell olive oil to support a scholarship for high school student, Amir Wahhab, to attend the Episcopal Technological and Vocational Training Center (ETVTC) in Ramallah, one of the many projects in the region supported by AFEDJ. Other students we have supported at the ETVTC, include Julie Hindaikh, Hanneh Wasaya and Rimon Mussalam. The ETVTC provides hope for high school students in a country with high unemployment and difficult living conditions.
Change the Babies
The “Change the Babies” outreach project supports babies at the Mampong Babies Home, as part of our diocese’s ongoing ministry and partnership with the Anglican Diocese of Kumasi in Ghana. At any given time there are between 35 and 40 babies at the Mampong Babies Home, aged 2 months to 6 years. The babies are there because their mothers have died and they remain there until their extended families can care for them, usually around the age of 4 or 5. Grace Church has agreed to support at least one child a year at the orphanage, where it costs about $1,500 for food, clothing, and other basic necessities. We’re doing this through a weekly offering — look for the jar at the back of the sanctuary.
Rector’s Discretionary Fund
The Rector’s Discretionary Fund is a pool of money generously donated by members of Grace Church, earmarked for emergencies, special circumstances, and individuals in acute need. In recent years, it has enabled us to provide support for victims of earthquakes and hurricanes, assistance with medical bills of poor parishioners, and help with other needs of the community. While the needs of the world can seem overwhelming, and we seldom have as much in the fund as we would wish, we do our best to send money where it might do the most good.