Mission Statement:
| The Outreach Committee is dedicated to providing
our congregation opportunities to serve the larger community. Inspired
by our patron, St. George, we are committed to slay the dragons of
despair, need and isolation through acts of loving service. |
Outreach Committee Members:
Donna DiPaulo
Sarah Farnsworth
Deborah Gallihue
Mary Geisz
Liz Havens
|
Ron Hodgins
Eileen Kammerer
Catherine Mallam–Joslin
Janet Saffer
Bryn Thompson
|
The Latest Outreach News:
Throughout the year, St. George’s
reaches beyond the walls of the church and into our community:
Outreach
in the Winter
ECS Cook –In
Twice yearly, in February and July, the parishioners get together to
cook, prepare and package trays for distribution through the ECS
Meals Program. This program provides nutritious, home-cooked dinners
delivered to the elderly, isolated shut-ins and those who are too
disabled to shop and cook for themselves. The cook-in is scheduled
for Tuesday, February 26 at 7:00 in the kitchen. The menu will be
meatloaf with all the
fixings. We need food donations as well as extra hands to assemble
the trays. Look for a sign-up sheet in the Dining Hall.
Youth Involvement
The youth of St. George's Church are involved in several Outreach projects.
They have their own ECS Cook –In, participate in the AIDS walk,
and they donate the proceeds from their Souper Bowl Sunday to Outreach.
REACH OUT!
|
Habitat
For Humanity
Through volunteer labor and tax-deductible donations of money
and materials, Habitat for Humanity constructs or rehabilitates
homes in partnership with the
families that will become homeowners. The building is accomplished by the families
and volunteer labor from all walks of life. These houses are sold to the families
for the cost of the materials with a mortgage that does not include interest
or profit. Habitat for Humanity's work is organized at the local level by more
than 1900 affiliates worldwide. Affiliates coordinate the four building blocks:
the house, funding, volunteers, and selection of partner families who are required
to invest 300-500 hours of "sweat equity" (volunteer time), in the
building of their home. Both teens and adults at St. George's have joined in
the effort to build houses for those in need.
Lenten Outreach
Projects
In an effort to fulfill our new mission statement, the Outreach
Committee is offering a Lenten Buffet of opportunities for the
congregation to "serve the larger community".
Baby SPOC Diaper Drive
It has been brought to our attention that the Baby
SPOC moms and children need disposable diapers; sizes from newborn
up to toddlers. The Baby SPOC program provides GED instruction,
parenting and life skills so these struggling young women
can prepare for the working world as single moms. The diapers
can be stacked in the Outreach comer of the dining hall.
|
We Continue to Support:
Torrey House
Here at St. George's we are reaching out to our neighbors who
live at the Torrey House in several ways. Torrey House is a residential
community for adults who are meeting challenges presented by a number
of emotional and psychological issues. We are using Outreach funds to
fill and deliver seasonal baskets four times a year, and the residents
are delighted with the games, magazines and homemade snacks within.
Early in the year, we participated in a weekly Read
Aloud Hour on Tuesday nights starting just after their supper at 5:30
p.m. Sadly, the program is no longer active, due to a lack of readers
and a need for planning for appropriate material. Interested in helping
to revive this program? Call
Heather Bonner (610–356–6699), or Hayes Russock, Director
of Torrey House (610–527–7131).
On another note, when Hayes asked if St. George's
could help outfit a Fitness Room at Torrey, Jack and Mary Fleming's son
Andrew donated his free standing weight bench with the weights. This
equipment had been gathering dust since Andrew left for college. Sally
Hale's household also had underused exercise equipment and has donated
a cross country ski machine and a treadmill to Torrey .
Baby Manna Program
Each year 1200 children in our area are born into poverty. The families and
caregivers for these children are in need of infant formula and baby food.
The Baby Manna campaign of the Greater Philadelphia Food Bank was created
to raise awareness of the tragedy of infant malnutrition. St. George's
supports Baby Manna through a monetary contribution.
Episcopal Community Services
ECS is a social service agency of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. It provides
a comprehensive and broad spectrum of social services to children, families,
frail and low-income elderly, people in prisons, hospitals, nursing homes
and people affected by AIDS. Contributions are made by the sale of ECS
Christmas cards and a special ECS Sunday collection.
Kearney Academics Plus Elementary
School
In support of "Putting Our Faith To Work" *,Outreach is helping
at-risk readers at Kearny, in the Northern Liberties section of North Philadelphia
at 6th Street and Fairmont Avenue. This school, like many Philadelphia public
schools, has no lending library. Our gift is a welcome windfall to the Reading
Coordinator at Kearny who will use the monies to continue to buy books for "The
100 Book Challenge Mobile" a project for which she has a grant. A basket
of books (30 or so) is being delivered every two weeks to the homes of at-risk
students in grades K, 1 and 2. The books are selected and distributed by
the appropriate reading level for each student. The idea is to encourage
reading at home with parents, logging the books read and, hopefully, building
competence and confidence through the process. "The 100 Book Challenge" within
school has been a popular approach to encourage struggling readers to do
more reading for pleasure.
This program helps purchase
independent reading books for their at-risk children at home and daycare centers.
Claire Coyle, Nancy Murphy, Susan Whereat and Ken Kinman have gone to the Kearney
School on Mondays to read to the children.
They need our help to purchase books. A book list
will be displayed in the dining hall. Monetary donations are also accepted.
*From the Episcopal Diocese of PA, the Bishop's Task
Force for Public Education brochure.
The Dolphins
The Dolphins are a group of volunteers who assist the elderly. They recruit,
train and match volunteers for one-to-one visits with residents of nursing
and retirement homes. We support the Dolphins with monetary contributions.
Urban Bridges at St. Gabriel's
Urban Bridges is located in the Olney-Feltonville section of Philadelphia.
It provides after-school programs for 352 children, literacy classes, visual
and performing arts and technology access to 303 adults and youth. We support
Urban Bridges through monetary contributions.
Guatemala
The Diocese of Pennsylvania entered into a companion relationship with the
Diocese of Guatemala in 1991. All congregations were encouraged to actively
support and participate in this relationship. In 1998 St. George's shipped
over 250 copies of The Book of Common Prayer in Spanish to Guatemala.
Malawi
The nation of Malawi in Africa is the 9th poorest nation in the world. Four
novices from Malawi were sent to the Community of St. Mary's in Peekskill,
NY to learn animal husbandry so they could return to their country to help
others. Thanks to the generosity of parishioners we were able to send enough
money to St. Mary's to build a shed for this project.
World Concern
This is Christian relief and development organization dedicated to serve
those in poor and oppressed countries. During the 2000 Lenten season. St.
George's collected school supplies to send to World Concern.
Other Programs We Support:
