Current Outreach Projects
We are supporting the grocery distribution ministry of St. Paul's Episcopal Church by focusing on the collection of one or two items each month. For the remainder of January we will collect canned vegetables. This is a good opportunity to take advantage of Can-Can sales! Please bring your canned vegetables to the church and leave them in the narthex.
Community Hot Meal & Grocery Distribution Program
Join us in helping out at the St. Paul’s Spring Valley Community Hot Meal and Grocery Distribution Program. Twice a month (first and third Saturdays) a hot meal and groceries are prepared and distributed at St. Paul's. There will be new sign up sheets in the narthex each month. Speak with Terry Deasy or Valerie Powers for more information
Past Outreach Projects
Summer 2023: Collected School Supplies for the Clarkstown Family Resource Center and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Spring Valley
Fall 2023: Collected food for Thanksgiving baskets for Clarkstown school children and their families who don’t have enough to eat. And we aren’t in this alone – many are coming together in our community to support these children and their families, consolidating our donations at the Clarkstown Family Resource Center for distribution
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Book Collection! Summer of 2023 St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Spring Valley announced a Summer Reading Giveaway and St. John's helped by collecting books for K-12 children/teens.
Our faith in action during Lent 2023 was in the form of collecting designated household supplies and donating them to local Clarkstown families through the Clarkstown Family Resource Center.
Our Christmas outreach opportunity for 2022 was providing a few small Christmas presents for the newborns at the refugee resettlement center in NYC.
From the Hunger Task Force…Thank you to all who brought in food and to those who delivered it to the Clarkstown Family Resource Center for Thanksgiving 2022.
Thank you to everyone who brought in clothing and carefully organized and packed it to give to those in our community seeking asylum.
Delivering bags of food for Thanksgiving 2021
St. John’s Hunger Task Force with Lisa Cohen, Executive Director of the Clarkstown Family Resource Center.
Hunger Fund
February 2021
Dear beloved people of God at St. John’s,
I am delighted to be able to share with you a wonderful opportunity we have been given to address the food insecurity of our neighbors. We have received significant funds in memory of Patricia DeFlorimonte, a longtime member of St. John’s who loved children, believed passionately about education, and always shared of herself with those who were hungry. The Hunger Fund Task Force, with the Vestry’s blessing, has discerned that the immediate need in our area that we could address is through the Clarkstown School District’s Family Resource Center. Children and their families in need are identified within the school system, and then the Clarkstown Family Resource Center (CFRC) provides monthly ShopRite grocery cards as well as supplemental bags of perishable food. St. John’s is sponsoring ten families for the remainder of the school year, and is now sending $1250 toward this sponsorship, with a promise of more over the next few months. This will make a real difference for children and their families in our area who don’t have enough to eat.
We will continue to receive gifts to St. John’s Hunger Fund, an ongoing fund at the church to supply food to our neighbors in need. We also are working with People to People as well as Meals on Wheels to discern how we might support their efforts to provide food for our neighbors in need. Once we are safely through this pandemic, we will engage in hands-on packaging and/or distribution in addition to our financial support; how we do this will become clearer in time.
For now, I encourage your contributions to St. John’s Hunger Fund. All that we receive goes to people in need. Together we can make a profound difference in the lives of our neighbors. And we bless God!
With love in Christ,
Mother Tori
People to People
Thank you to John Coyle who takes our donations to People to People.
Global Outreach
Voice of the Martyrs
Update: We reached our goal of raising $5000 for 833 bibles. Thank you!
Our Outreach Committee invites the congregation to participate in our Global Outreach initiative at St. John's in the months ahead. In addition to praying for persecuted Christians throughout the world, we will be collecting funds to provide Bibles to persecuted Christians through The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM).
Whenever possible, VOM workers collect the names of persecuted believers who need Bibles. At some times and in some places however, it is too dangerous to collect their names. These believers receive Bibles through VOM's Covert Operations outreach, which also involves the distribution of audio Bibles. Workers who distribute Bibles in covert areas face the possibility of years in prison if caught.
See the Outreach display in the narthex for more information about The Voice of the Martyrs and our Global Outreach initiative to provide funds for Bibles to persecuted Christians throughout the world.
If you would like to make a donation, please indicate "VOM BIBLES" in the check memo line.
Ongoing Outreach
Episcopal Charities
We hold an Episcopal Charities Sunday each year and these donations to the Diocese provide funding for outreach ministries throughout the Diocese. (add something about the number and types of ministries supported) Founded in 1996, Episcopal Charities provides funding and operational support to parish-sponsored outreach programs serving the diverse communities of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. The 48 feeding programs supported by Episcopal Charities serve more than 6.7 million meals annually to hungry New Yorkers.
In our Outreach Programs at St. John's, we serve as Christ's heart and hands in the world.
Outreach is not limited to the work of a committee. We have individuals and families in our congregation who minister to the homeless, volunteer to serve in a soup kitchen and domestic violence shelter, collect items for particular needs, etc., as well as groups within our congregation that engage in outreach ministry through special projects, like our ECW, and our youth and children.
Lenten Outreach Projects
Lent 2016
During Lent 2016 our Lenten Outreach focus was Meals on Wheels.
Our youth led the way by inspiring us with their Outreach project of Blizzard Boxes to Meals on Wheels as part of Souper Bowl of Caring, and following their lead, we took on Adopt a Senior for Lent 2016. We donated Blizzard Boxes, handmade Cards for Caring, and funding for 36 weeks of meals for seniors in our community through Adopt-A-Senior.
Lent 2015
During Lent 2015, our global outreach project at St. John's raised money to fill an ARK with Heifer International
Each group within St. John's donated at least one animal to the ARK.
