Volunteer Opportunities, PCCH at Work: A Commitment to Mission
We strive to embody God’s gracious love in Jesus Christ through our service and witness together and through our benevolences to mission. Members of PCCH have supported this ministry with generosity, both in hours in dollars. The Social Witness Committee, on behalf of the congregation, contributes to a number of organizations and projects, and works to involve the congregation as volunteers in service to mission. The Committee meets the 4th Tuesday of each month at 7:30 pm in the Reception Room; all are welcome! For more information, please contact Sylvia Studenmund or the Church Office. Be sure to check the Social Witness Committee Bulletin Board for current information.
Here are some of the projects we support:
Northwest Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network
The Northwest Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network (NPIHN) families are neighbors in need of temporary sheltering. Families selected for the program, temporarily without housing, are sheltered, counseled and receive an array of services designed to allow families to remain intact through NPIHN’s holistic approach to rebuilding from homeless and ultimately achieve independent living. NPIHN continues to mentor and provide support services to the families for as long as necessary after they have moved from the family shelter.
Please consider pledging a couple of hours or an overnight, if you are able. This is a wonderful opportunity for families to work on mission together; for our children to experience the joy of giving and sharing our human gifts; and for people of all ages to come together to do God’s work. It is also an opportunity for our youth to acquire service hours for their school programs. An overnight stay will provide 10 hours of service and NPIHN will write a very nice letter as well.
PCCH is hosting the sheltering of NPIHN families at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Chestnut Hill Avenue from Sunday, March 13 through Saturday, March 19.
The three types of opportunities for these weeks of service are:
1) Dinner Hosts – 6:00-7:45pm. Dinner hosts prepare, serve, and join the families for dinner. If necessary, preparing dinner and serving dinner can be divided into two separate opportunities. Families are responsible for setting the table and cleaning up after dinner.
2) Evening Hosts -7:30-9pm. Evening hosts spend the evening with the families. You can bring games, crafts or other activities, music, such as a guitar, and your children. Provide help with homework, if needed. If NPIHN counselors are having a session for the parents, you will oversee the children during that time.
3) Overnight Hosts – 8:45pm-7am (9:30am on weekends). Overnight hosts let the guests and Evening hosts know when they arrive; provide bedtime and wake-up reminders. Guests leave the facility by 7am, 9:30am on Saturday and Sunday. Each family has its own room; Overnight hosts have a separate room as well.
The NPIHN staff is available 24/7 to provide any help or assistance necessary—they are a mere cell phone call away. Please note: the schedule is designed for two people to be serving at each of these times. To sign up, please see the signup sheet on the table beneath the Social Witness bulletin board in Widener or for more information contact Sylvia Studenmund (sylvia.studenmund@verizon.net).
AchieveAbility
This incredible project, in West Philadelphia, helps families make their way out of homelessness and poverty by providing comprehensive, intensive, supportive social services and decent and affordable housing. The program has been extremely effective. In addition to funding, we support AchieveAbility in other ways. We conduct an annual backpack drive to equip the children of AchieveAbility with new school bags, packed with supplies and gifts to start the school year off. In 2009, we supplied more than 50 backpacks! Members of this congregation have provided Christmas gifts for AchieveAbility families, arranged for the donation of computers to the after-school center, and supplied items for families setting up housekeeping. The Church School children donated many new books to the families and to the day care program; the Bazaar Committee has donated toys, games, and books.
Volunteers are always needed, especially to serve as after-school tutors, mentors, study buddies, trip chaperones, and more. Contact the Church Office, Judith Hain, or AchieveAbility. Learn more at www.achieve-ability.org
Flea-zaar
October 1, 2011 (Rain Date: Oct. 1, indoors), 8:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.
Our challenge this year is to raise $12,000 for mission outreach. There are many ways to help: contribute lots of treasures, staff a stall, help set up & clean up, spread the word! Can’t help out but would like to contribute? Write a tax-deductable check to the “PCCH Fleazaar.” We are now renting stalls! Contact the church office for details at 215-247-8855 or ecarpenter@chestnuthillpres.org
Co- Chairs: John Armbruster and Nadine Ball; Treasurer: Bev Heimbach
For photos of last year's Flea-zaar, visit our Picasa photo album.
Adult Mission Trips
The Social Witness Committee provides opportunities for first-hand mission experience, through regular adult mission trips. Members have visited Haiti 6 times – see below – and have travelled 3 times to Pearlington, Mississippi to assist the Presbyterian Disaster office with the continuing clean up efforts following the devastating hurricanes of 2005. Please contact Suzan Willcox, or the Church Office for further information.Broad Street Ministries
The Broad Street Ministry is a new venture begun by our church and others, on the Avenue of the Arts, across from the Kimmel Center in the once-shuttered Chambers-Wylie Presbyterian Church. This innovative ministry is a place for the arts community and people of faith to flourish together. We encourage you to attend a Sunday 6 p.m. service, a last-Wednesday-of the-month “No Barriers” Community Dinner, or any of the other exciting events on the calendar, or to volunteer at the 315 South Café, which provides a safe place and warm meal for homeless men and women every night. Check out the website, www.broadstreetministry.org, or read the blog, http://broadstreetministry.blogspot.comCentral Presbyterian, Norristown – Hispanic Ministry
We collect food and money at the end of worship every second Sunday to support the needs of the growing, and largely poor, Hispanic population in nearby Norristown. Volunteers from this congregation pitched in to paint the church hall, and a loyal crew assists at Central Presbyterian each week, organizing and distributing food and clothing. Volunteers are needed to assist with this work; please contact the Church Office.Chester Eastside Ministry
On the model of a settlement house, this ministry serves those most in need in Chester, once a prospering industrial city, now among the most economically depressed in the country. Housed in the once-vibrant Third Presbyterian Church, CEM renovated and reopened the building, where it provides after-school reading programs, an emergency food program, the only library on the east side, bible study, summer day camp, cultural arts, GED preparation, and a home for other non-profit groups serving the Chester community.
We have long supported this ministry. CEM has used our donation for its summer arts programming for children, and other projects that make a difference in children’s lives. To learn more, visit www.chestereastsideministries.org.
Covenant Network
This national organization of Presbyterians is committed to making room for all in a church that continues to be conflicted over ordination, scriptural authority, and Christology. We are proud to support the Covenant Network; we also host a benefit dinner each year with other churches in the Presbytery, to raise additional funds. Church members volunteer to set up, serve, and cleanup; to get involved, please contact the Church Office. For more about the Covenant Network, go to www.covenantnetwork.org.Germantown Avenue Crisis Ministry
This ecumenical coalition of about a dozen congregations in Northwest Philadelphia, housed at First Presbyterian in Germantown, runs a food pantry and offers help with rent, utilities, and other bills. GACM provides more than 40 food packages weekly (enough for a family to prepare 3 meals a day for 3 days) and at least 100 Thanksgiving and Christmas food baskets. This ministry has helped hundreds of local residents.
Our congregation was instrumental in the formation of GACM, and remains one of its principal financial (and food) supporters. Members have served on the GACM board, and contribute generously to the first-Sunday-of the month food collection. Volunteers are always needed to assist with food and funding disbursements at First Presbyterian (training provided); in addition, we are looking for interested individuals to serve on the GACM Board. Please contact the Church Office or GACM for more information.
Habitat for Humanity
For years, members of this congregation have supported Habitat for Humanity with their dollars and their sweat. In 2002, in partnership with Progress Bank, we funded the purchase of a vacant house in Germantown, and worked for months, demolishing, digging, pouring concrete, laying floors, hammering, painting, sanding, plastering, and more, creating a beautiful new home for a local family, while ridding a block of an eyesore property.
More recently, we partnered with other Presbyterian congregations to rehabilitate four properties in the Point Breeze section of Southwest Philadelphia, near the John Gloucester House. In addition our annual financial donation, we pledged $25,000 per year for three years, to this project.
In addition to the ongoing Point Breeze projects, Habitat is currently working on seven “green” homes in the West Parkside neighborhood. always needs skilled volunteers to participate in hands-on work at these building sites. For more about Habitat in Philadelphia, see www.habitatphiladelphia.org.
Haiti Mission
We have made six trips to Haiti, to support and learn about the work begun by Rodney and Sharyn Babe, and currently led by Mike and Nicole Carlin, at L’Acul, in the rural area near Leogane. Under their leadership, millions of trees have been planted, hundreds of ponds for fish farming have been built, numerous families now have cisterns for collecting clean water, improved farming techniques have been adopted, many teachers have been trained and school children provided with school supplies, and the list goes on. This congregation has sent hundreds of pounds of supplies – from crayons to PVC pipes – and donated money to support the fish-farming efforts led by the Woods Hole Marine Biology Labs. Through the mission component of our capital fundraising we provided solar panels which run the generators supplying much-needed electricity to the mission compound. We also support the Babe’s current work, teaching at Episcopal University in Port-au-Prince.
For more about the work the Babes are doing, see http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/baber.htm. To learn about the work in L’Acul, see, www.haitifundinc.org.
John Gloucester House
The John Gloucester is an outreach ministry of the Philadelphia Presbytery, helping residents of Point Breeze in Southwest Philadelphia. The Center houses, among other things, an after-school program, a day camp and day care, and a community food cupboard. The Center has teamed with Chester Eastside Ministries and Kirkwood to provide a joint summer camp ministry, and with Habitat for Humanity, to improve housing in Point Breeze. For more information, contact www.jghouse.org
We have provided Christmas gifts for children in Southwest Philadelphia, and helped the Center put on its “Happy Birthday Jesus” party in early December. Volunteers are always needed – watch the for announcements in the Bulletin, and check the Social Witness Committee bulletin board, for information about the gift collection and how you can help with this event.
Justice Ventures International
JVI supports organizations that promote justice in India and China. Projects include training public defenders, providing decent housing and health services to slum dwellers, aiding victims of human trafficking and illegal slavery, and creating economic opportunity, through grants and microcredit, to victims of sex-slavery, bonded slavery, and other forms of forced labor. For more information, see www.justiceventures.org
Kirkwood Camp
The Presbytery of Philadelphia's camp ministry, the 286-acre Kirkwood Camp and retreat center in the Poconos, has been a vital youth ministry since 1961; many PCCH members have whiled away happy summer days hiking, sailing, and camping in the meadows, ponds, and forests at Kirkwood. Our financial contribution helps keep the camp going. For more information, please visit www.kirkwoodcamp.org.
Medical Benevolence Foundation
The Medical Benevolence Foundation is made up of dedicated Presbyterians committed to providing medical support for people in remote areas around the world. MBF supports the operating costs of several hospitals, including two in Haiti, helps fund a nursing school in Leogane, Haiti (near our mission partners in that country), and provides medical mission assistance in the Congo, Malawi, Kenya, Bangladesh, Ghana, and other countries, addressing health needs from immunizations to HIV/AIDS education to malnutrition. PCCH supports the Medical Benevolence Foundation with a gift from the Social Witness Committee budget. To learn more about this organization, visit, www.mbfoundation.org.Metropolitan Career Center
Metropolitan Career Center was founded to provide disadvantaged young people in the Germantown community with the basic education, work experience, and preparation needed for employment and economic independence. MCC matches jobseekers and employers and provides training and individualized support, one-month job readiness and placement programs, and longer vocational training in information technology and office administration. MCC advisors provide counseling, referrals, academic advising, and employment-related services. Since 1974, MCC has served over 11,000 students. We are pleased to support this respected and effective organization with an annual donation.
To learn more, visit www.mccweb-gt.org. Volunteers are welcome: If you would like to talk to classes about your career, tutor students, help plan events, or assist with office tasks, contact MCC at 215-843-9373, ext. 313 or kpeter@mcc2000.org.
Neighborhood Interfaith Movement
From interfaith services of worship to clergy days of study to joint ventures in mission, NIM organizes faith communities in Northwest Philadelphia. NIM and its 44 allied congregations and faith-based partners promote interfaith action, diversity, and social justice through advocacy and service, and run numerous programs and workshops for children and families, and for older adults. Current initiatives include the Philadelphia Early Childhood Collaborative, the Northwest Older Adults Volunteer Initiative, and interfaith dialogue on racial reconciliation. This congregation is a long-time NIM supporter. NIM has many options for volunteers, see www.nim-phila.org, or call 215 283-5600.Northwest Philadelphia Interfaith Housing Network (NPIHN)
We are a founding church of the local office of this national organization, formed to meet housing needs of homeless families. NPIHN clients are temporarily displaced families who need help to get back on their feet. Through NPIHN, families are housed for limited stays at local churches; members of these host churches and of “buddy” churches (such as ours) provide dinner and companionship every night. The program involves more than beds and meals: NPIHN requires accountability, responsibility and interaction, and assists with improving education and parenting skills, as well as spiritual, mental and financial health.
We provide financial support and volunteers to provide meals and other assistance. Watch the Social Witness Committee bulletin board for sign up information. NPIHN also regularly needs donations of children’s clothes, car seats, and household goods, and needs volunteers to food shop, provide office assistance, tutor, serve as mentors, and more. Contact NPIHN 215-247-4663, or visit www.philashelter.org for more information.
Our Brother’s Place Men’s Shelter
At Our Brother’s Place, a shelter located near Center City, we have served thousands of meals featuring our homemade Sloppy Joes, for nearly 15 years. Our Brother’s Place shelters more than 150 men each night and provides day services for many more. Often, over 250 show up for a hot evening meal.
We supply and serve dinner the fourth Sunday of every month. We purchase vegetables and fruit, desserts, beverages, bread, and members bring in Sloppy Joes made at home. Scores of members have helped, dishing up meals. See the Social Witness Committee Bulletin Board for the easy Sloppy Joe recipe, and to sign up for a serving team, or contact Sylvia Studenmund or the Bethesda Project for more information. For more information about PCCH's involvement with OBP and hunger issues in the Philadelphia area, visit the Hunger Community's page.
Philadelphia Presbyterian Homes – 58th Street
PresbyHomes & Services serves older members of the community by providing quality housing and supportive services. The 58th Street Home in Philadelphia provides affordable and skilled nursing and rehabilitative care to area seniors; we support this mission with an annual donation. Volunteers are always welcome; contact the facility at 215 724-2218 or www.presbyhomes.org.Presbyterian Children’s Village
Presbyterian Children's Village was founded as an orphanage in 1877; since the 1970s services have gradually been adapted and PCV now provides a range of child welfare, behavioral health and therapeutic programs for troubled children and their families, in both community-based and residential settings. We have long supported this mission: members have served on the board and have contributed regular financial support through the Social Witness Committee budget. For more information, check www.pcv.org Samaritan Counseling Center
We have long been involved in Samaritan Counseling by contributing funds so that others who cannot otherwise afford it may receive the help these minister/counselors have to give. St. Catherine Labouré Clinic
St. Catherine Labouré Medical Clinic in Germantown only accepts patients who do not have medical coverage, offering many their only access to health care. In addition to medical care, the clinic provides counseling and social work services, help making medical appointments, filling out forms, and finding creative ways for patients to receive costly diagnostic tests. The clinic, founded and run by the very dedicated Dr. Sheila Davis is dependent on donations, such as the annual gift from this congregation, for financial support, and looks to volunteers to assist with office work. For more information, please call 215 438-5799, or see www.clinicforuninsured.org.Utility Emergency Services Adopt-A-Family Fund
The Utility Emergency Services Fund keeps Philadelphia families warm one at a time, through its Adopt-A-Family program. Donations, matched by utility companies, provide electric, gas, and water to families for one year. Through the Social Witness Committee budget, we have “adopted” two to four families annually. Learn more at www.uesfacts.org/adopt.html. The Veterans Group
This organization operates shelter in West Philadelphia housing 48 homeless veterans, and provides meals, rehabilitation, counseling and other services to many more. Last year, the Veterans Group prepared and served over 45,000 meals and provided over 15,000 nights of rest for veterans; the need for these and other services keeps increasing. For more inofmration, please contact theveteransgroup.orgYouth Mission Trip
PCCH youth groups have traveled to rural Florida, Georgia, Maine, and West Virginia, each time gaining first hand experience working with the truly poor. While the youth and their families covering most of the funding for these trips, the Social Witness Committee commits additional dollars, to make sure all interested youth have the opportunity to participate. Adult chaperones are always needed; contact the Church Office or Brian Russo for further information.