At a time of year when many are preoccupied with things to do, people to see, lists to complete, what’s one way that you can take a moment to reach out to someone unexpected?
Or if you’ve already helped someone today, how did you do it? In person, via phone, Facebook or some other way?
Outreach! What a rewarding effort!
Our Church, St. Matthew Lutheran in the Newberry section of Williamsport, PA, just completed our 2nd Annual Operation Christmas Gift outreach program on Sunday, Dec. 19. We worked on our project for about 2 months starting with making "Tie" Blankets for over 50 kids from infants to 17 years of age. Our project has a budget of approx $10,000.00 and we try to make those funds go as far as we can.
We had our Pizza Party kick off for baking and decorating the weekend of Dec. 10 - 12...during that time, we baked serveral types of cookies and 2 kinds of breads. We decorated the social hall and made other decorations. On Sat. Dec. 20, about 15 of us got together and wrapped the food boxes,food gift cards gifts, and blankets to be ready for Sunday. In all, we helped members of our congregation and Church of the Savior, Lutheran in Williamsport and families from around our town that we found out needed our help. We had 30 families that we helped, which included 50+ kids. We bought gifts and gift bags of goodies for a local Personal Care home with 25 residents and made up gift bags for our eight shut ins. We will finish our project with giving our families help with heating costs. We will be moving forward with our plans for our 3rd Annual Operation Christmas Gift...shortly after the first of the year.