SOCIAL MINISTRY EVANGELIZATION OPPORTUNITIES

Monroe East Region

Church of the Assumption, Fairport • Rochester Area Interfaith Hospitality Network (RAIHN): A network of diverse faith communities provide hospitality to homeless. One week out of every 13 weeks homeless families live at Assumption. 50 volunteers (some from Mt Rise UCC church & Resurrection) prepare family meals in gracious surroundings and dine, play and chat with the families and provide secure & comfortable place to live. Our parish helps RAIHN pay for insurances, van and social worker/director's salary as famileies continue their schooling and work; families are helped to find safe, affordable housing

• Parish tithe: 7% of our parish budget goes to needs unfunded by gov't, i.e. Joining Hearts and Hands Educational mission in Kenya, Jablonski's medical mission in Kenya, Fr Halligan, SJ Working Boy's Center Family of Families (education, healthcare, skill bldg, business, mechanics, catechesis, etc.) in Quito, Ecuador and many others, near and far.

• Fairport Good Neighbor fund: Some of our parish tithe joins from other faith communities in our area to support local people in need.

• Mercy fund: parishioners donate directly to Mercy fund. Daily people come in need of assistance. Our Mercy team interviews, asks the hard questions & helps with budgeting. People are assisting in prioritizing expenses, connecting with help agencies and when outside of our area , with other faith communities. When needed we give food cards, help with rent, gas, prescriptions, rides, bills. Total has been around $35,000 a yr, but this year we are inundated with additional requests from people working more than 2 jobs who simply cannot pay for basic necessities.

• Clothing ministry: parishioners donate clothes and our clothing ministry team sorts and arranges and staffs the display. (we also have 2 Planet Aid drops boxes for cast off clothes)

• Holiday dinners: School nurses and social workers alert us to needs; team collaborates with other faith communities and agencies to assure integrity of lists so that Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter ingredients for holiday dinners are brought to families in need by Assumption parishioners who have talked with the family who is in need so that their gift of fixins for holiday dinner is appropriate. Approx . 135 families are helped (approx 520 people) each holiday.

• We work with Project URGE: Rochester area ecumentical outreach and Eastern Service Workers: Rochester area outreach.

• Habitat for Humanity, members of our pastoral team have work parties at the site. Parishioners both donate and work.

• Blessed Sacrament Soup Kitchen: A team has been serving there weekly for many years.

• Bethany House meals: One of our JustFAITH groups prepares dinner and dines with Bethany house residents and staff twice a month. Other JustFAITH groups do various service projects, i.e. bringing people to grocery stores & dr's appointments, visiting the sick, holding garage sales for a , teaching inner city mothers parenting skills

• Right to Life baby shower: amazing collection of new baby items and appliances are collected each yr and distributed to Birthright and other agencies

• Catholic Relief Services SERVE Fair Trade yearly sale just before Advent

• Women' soup mix self help poverty project sale with baked food sale for our outreach ministries each Lent.

• Perinton Food Shelf weekly collection. We list items in bulletin that are specifically requested by the food shelf team.

• Collections. When some of our JustFaith graduates and others go to work @ or visit missions in Kenya, Ecuador, southern tier (flood relief) they contact the people @ the mission to assess specific needs. Our parishioners donate items specifically requested by the people we are visiting.

• Angel Tree: specific are collected and brought to needy children each Christmas both near and far.

• School of Religion is presently having a mitten and sock collection and does that sort of thing about twice a year.

• Youth non perishable food collection. And one of our youth groups does inner city work with children and volunteers when Deaconess Maggie brings her children here for summer camp.

• Refugee Resettlement Team gathered 12 people at their training meeting. Looks like this will be a new outreach.

• We participate in CROPWALK, Rally for LIFE (Cancer) and Vision

• Operation breadbox

Church of the Resurrection, Fairport

• We regularly help people (not just residents of Perinton) with utility bills, food cards, etc. through our Caring & Sharing Fund in addition to tithing to the Good Neighbor Fund.

• We collect items for the local Food Shelf.

• Parishioners and committees provide a number of Christmas baskets in conjunction with local agencies, other parishes and call-ins.

• The Faith Formation program is sponsoring an outreach to St. Peter's kitchen this year.

Holy Trinity Church, Webster • HOPE Ministry is located on the campus of Holy Trinity Church at 1450 Ridge Road, Webster. We are a food pantry, clothing closet, furniture and household ministry. We meet with our recipients one on one during each visit. We are able to offer some financial assistance for housing, medical, energy or other bills. We help low income people in Webster or parishioners of WPCC. We are open 4 days a week, and have 70 plus volunteers. HOPE is supported by Holy Trinity church, area churches, schools and organizations.

• We donated goods we are unable to use to House of Mercy, Birthright, Mary's Place, Open Door Mission and others.

• Holy Trinity has a large Christmas program (Star) which provides presents and dinner for our local HOPE recipients as well as outreach to numerous city parishes.

St. Jerome's Church, East Rochester • Parishioners participate every year in our giving tree program which provides Christmas gifts to residents at Parkside Manor, children at St. Joseph's Villa and needy families in the East Rochester area. In conjunction with the giving tree program St. Jerome's along with East Rochester Resource Center prepare food baskets for the needy.

• St. Jerome's is part of the ERAC (East Rochester Association of Churches) and a collection is taken up at the Ecumenical Thanksgiving Service and usually the is given East Rochester Resource Center.

• On the third Sunday of each month there is a collection of nonperishable products and food to be given to East Rochester Resource Center.

• Occasionally adult and children's clothing that is donated to the church is contributed to Bethany House.

St. Joseph, Penfield

• RAIHN Project: (Rochester Area Interfaith Hospitality Network) St Joseph's volunteers work together with Temple Sinai volunteers to provide temporary and hospitality to those families with children who are homeless.

• Gift Garden: St. Joseph volunteers work with Fiacre Gardens to grow and distribute vegetables for those in need.

• Sharing Hearts Urban/Suburban Connection: Our purpose is to have a relationship with our sister parish cluster (St. Francis Xavier Cabrini) and to reach out together to the less fortunate through local and global ministries.

o Matthew’s Closet- Through clothing donations for those in need, our parish is able to help support this ministry run by our sister parish.

o Gift of the Magi- The parish provides Christmas gifts to the community of St. Francis Xavier Cabrini to share and celebrate our blessings.

o St. Regis Food Cupboard- Non perishable food items donated by our parish are delivered weekly to the food cupboard run by our sister parish; listening to God’s call to feed the poor.

• Habitat for Humanity: Our coalition of churches from Penfield, Webster and East Rochester supports Flower City Habitat for Humanity by financing and constructing homes for low-income homeowners in Rochester, NY. Through church contributions and non-stop , we work to eliminate poverty housing in our area. We will be building our ninth house next year.

• Food Van Delivery: St. Joseph’s provides a van and volunteers to transport food from donors to service providers such as Bethany House.

• Bethany House: We respond in charity to the immediate needs of women and children living in transition at the house by providing volunteers, basic necessities and mentoring. Our mentoring program pairs women from the parish with women who are leaving Bethany House in order to help them achieve independence. We also respond in justice as advocates of better social policies and legislation.

• Tanzania Provides scholarships to girls in Tanzania to be able to go to school and supports the Sisters of Usambara with means who live and attend college locally.

• Local City Schools (FREE Partnerships) Providing one-to-one and small group tutoring, mentoring and modeling to elementary school students with the short term goal of encouraging them to enjoy and stay in school and the long term goal of breaking the cycle of poverty and underachievement. We also support a Back Pack program to provide weekend food for 50 students from School 50. • Dimitri House Meal Parishioners are able to live out their faith by preparing and serving a meal, as well as interacting with the less fortunate of Rochester.

St. Paul's, Webster • We have a large basket in our narthex for a "monthly" food collection for the women and children served by Bethany House. (In actuality, people bring food each week and it's delivered as it comes in.)

• Our School of Religion also periodically collects food for Hope House, a food bank/clothing closet/skills counseling ministry located at Holy Trinity, but supported by a number of churches in the area.

• Our Good Sam Committee also selects a number of organizations that sponsor food banks to receive money from our parish tithing.

St. Rita's, Webster • We have an outreach fund to help people with rent, utility bills, sometimes car repairs, etc. Out of this fund we purchase gift cards for $25 each from Hegedorn's for groceries, and gas cards for $10 each from Hess. • Once monthly we have a food collection for St. Peter/Paul's soup kitchen. We ask anyone who's forgotten to bring in food to please make a donation to our outreach fund.

• For Thanksgiving, our teens do a scavenger hunt to provide baskets for names that have been given to us either by parishioners or the wider community.

• For Christmas, we have an angel project. We contact families, again whose names have been passed on to us or are known by us, and put out tags for Christmas gifts. We don't do food for Christmas, just presents.