(no subject)
Feb. 7th, 2005 07:00 pmI had my first meeting with the Board of Mission and Outreach at church last night. I feel all spiffy. It's so nice to have my ideas and suggestions taken seriously. I also have two tasks: One, I need to call St. Vincent de Paul and ask what services they offer and how people are supposed to access them. Two, I'm in charge of a fundraising thingie. Our denomination does a specific fundraiser with an assload of other denominations nationally, and the money goes to various aid (not missionary) projects around the world. Three, I volunteered to be the one going up during service and report on what the board is doing/has done/is going to do. Normally this is only a minute or two, but in April I have five minutes because we'll be bringing up all the budgetary stuff from last year. Yeay for yearly stewardship drives.
One of the biggest reasons I joined this church is because of all the community service stuff it does. Joining the board, holy crap, we do more than I thought. We've had to make some hard decisions because money is thin right now. There used to be a small fund set aside, and when people called the church saying, "I need help with rent/electricity/prescriptions," one of the members of the board would call them back and check out the situation and offer a bit of money. It truly wasn't much, around $60 a month was budgeted for this, and we gave the money directly to the landlord/electric company/pharmacy. Apparently it sucked to be on the rotation, because either you'd find people trying to fuck you over, or you'd run out quick and have to turn people down. What we've decided to do instead, is make a list of larger organizations who do that sort of thing, and have that ready for people; and give the money there instead. Which is why I'm calling St. Vincent de Paul. I also stressed to them--if they literally show up at our door, we should let them use the phone, and we should have bus tickets to give them.
We give out $5 vouchers to a local grocery store. We have brown bag lunches for people who show up hungry. We're heavily involved in Family Bridge, which gives temporary shelter to homeless families (there are churches on rotation, we take turns--about every nine weeks we have families for four nights), and we give money to the day house for Family Bridge that gives them breakfast and lunch and has classes on things like renting and interviewing skills. The day house has a full time director and a part time volunteer coordinator, as well--the church gives them $100 a month. The board doesn't do this, but the church also started a program that on Sunday nights opens the church up to homeless kids (there are more homeless people in Hillsboro than most people think). We're in the process of building a shower downstairs, so they'll get a chance to use it. We're also having a movie and dinner. It's not an overnighter, just an evening thing--but it's a taste of "normal" for them. The idea actually came from the high school group--they're awesome.
*whew* Between being on the church board (there are other boards, but I'm only on the one) and Aurora, I think I don't have time for anything else that requires me to be anywhere at a specific time. I may rent a harp and I may keep knitting but I can fit those in whenever I get a chance.
Which will be, like, never.