Outreach
For the Holidays: Alternative Giving Ideas
Hope For Christmas
This Christmas, UMCOR offers the opportunity to give a gift that gives back. Christmas Wishes is an alternative program to a traditional gift that may provide an outreach to assist in a United Methodist project, such as supporting housing for a missionary in the U.S., providing anti-malarial medicine to 25 pregnant women or feeding a family of five for one month.
One hundred percent of gifts in any amount to any missionary or project will be directed to the chosen designation. All your shopping can be done online!
Visit UMCOR’s Christmas Wish List: http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/getconnected/resources/christmas/
Make it a ‘fair trade’ Christmas
The UMC’s General Board of Church and Society is partnering with fair trade advocates and organizations to offer a new outlet for Christmas gift giving. The Give Fair Trade blog has a daily featured gift and special offers as well as stories featuring the item’s producers that show how a commitment to fair trade affects producers directly.
Visit http://givefairtrade.wordpress.com/
Hopewell Borough FOOD PANTRY
We are collecting non-perishable foods for Hopewell’s food pantry; a box has been provided in the Narthex. Please reach out to those in need from within Hopewell’s five churches and community.
Specific foods that are needed at this time are: Soups, peanut butter, spaghetti sauce, canned vegetables, cereals, coffee/tea, sugar, cooking oil and laundry detergent.
Operation Christmas Child – International Outreach
Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, the Christian relief and evangelism ministry led by Franklin Graham.
Church families participate in this mission by “adopting a shoebox.” They pack one (or more) boxes with goodies – school supplies, health supplies, little toys and hard candies. See How to Pack a Shoebox on Samaritan’s Purse website.
Thanks for your participation this year.
HomeFront Thanksgiving Baskets
Thanks to all who donated to Thanksgiving food boxes to HomeFront this year.
Heifer International
In September 2010, the children and adults of the church donated enough to purchase the following animals to help families in underdeveloped nations become self-reliant: 1 goat, 1 llama, 1 sheep, 3 trios of rabbits and 3 flocks of chickens. They also donated toward the purchase of a heifer. This mission project is through Heifer International.
Helping The Homeless – Mercer County
This holiday season, over 1,800 adults and children in Mercer County are homeless. Thank you to all who also helped us collect food items and funds for our Thanksgiving Baskets for HomeFront. Each year our church’s participation helps local families.
Christmas Cheer – Hopewell, NJ
Each year, we participate in spreading Christmas joy with the residents of Featherbed Rest home. The residents give us their wishes, which are posted on tags on a Christmas tree at church, and families select a person and fulfills his or her wish. Questions? See Pat Grant.
Keep Saving Your Labels – Red Bird Mission, KY
The United Methodist Women continue to save Campbells’ soup can labels, Box Tops for Education and many other food labels for our mission project.
Please save your Campbells’ soup labels as well as labels from Swanson broths, Pepperidge Farm products, Franco-American, V8 juices, Prego pasta sauce and Pace products. We are also saving General Mills Box Tops for Education, which is found on a variety General Mills cereals and other products.
Please note – There have been changes to the labels program for the Red Bird Mission. Campbell’s no longer accepts the front panel of soup can labels. The part of the label that can be redeemed is the UPC section, along with the Labels for Education symbol. This may be a stylized pencil on old labels or the little student shown below. These must be attached together, not taped or glued or stapled. Just cut them off the label together.
Bring the labels to church and place in the container marked Red Bird Mission – Labels for Education. It’s on the table in the hallway on your way to the Sunroom. A complete list of eligible product labels will also be available for you, next to the collection box.
All of the labels will be sent to the Red Bird Missionin Beverly, Kentucky. Through the Campbells’ Soup Co.’s “Labels for Education” and the General Mills’ “Box Tops for Education” programs, Red Bird Mission is able to exchange the labels for much-needed equipment and supplies that help support its ministries.
What is the Red Bird Mission?
Red Bird Mission is an institution in the Red Bird Missionary Conference and is comprised of Red Bird Mission, Inc. and Red Bird Clinic, Inc., two national mission institutions related to the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.
Since 1921, Red Bird Mission in Beverly, KY, has helped meet the spiritual, educational and health needs of those living in the southeastern part of the state. More than half of the adults in the mission do not have a high school education, and 50% of the labor force is unemployed, according to Brian Barker, director of mission giving for Red Bird Mission. “The labels allow us to buy items we would otherwise not be able to afford; and (the program) frees us to use financial donations for community outreach, such as food, clothing or shelter,” says Baker.
Red Bird Mission’s Mission Statement
Red Bird Mission, guided by Jesus Christ, empowers individuals and advocates justice by providing spiritual, educational, health, and community outreach ministries.
For more information about the Red Bird Mission, visit their web site at www.rbmission.org. And keep those labels coming.
