SERVICE

2010 is a year of mission at Emory Presbyterian Church. Here is the full 2009-2010 calendar of projects (PDF).

January - MLK Day Service Project

This year took our participation in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Service Weekend a very bold step further, co-sponsoring the repair and maintenance of a house belonging to a low-income senior in the City of Decatur. Together with North Decatur United Methodist Church, we provided funding and volunteers for the project.

Lent - CHOA Meal Bags

Sometimes families find themselves spending days or weeks at a child's hospital bedside. At the request of social work department at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, We are making meal bags for parents who cannot afford to buy meals during their child's hospitalization. They give out 20-40 meal bags a day so at least 100 a week or 400 a month.

How can you help? Bring non-perishable individually-packaged food for a meal bag. If you prefer you can give money and the needed food will be purchased. You can bring the food in bulk and place it in the back of the sanctuary. The supplies will be available in the Prayer Room in the fellowship hall for anyone who would like to assemble a meal bag and pray for the family the meal will nourish. Or you can create meal bags at home yourself. Lillian recommends her daily Lenten practice: make a meal bag, pray for the family it will serve, and give thanks for your own health and the health of those you love.

Each bag will have

• Breakfast item (such as oatmeal, cereal, or cheese grits)
• Lunch/dinner item (soup or stew or mac/cheese or pasta dish)
• Something sweet
• Something savory (peanuts or peanut butter crackers or cheese crackers)
• Fruit / juice

March - Clifton Night Shelter

The EPC Mission Ministry is exploring a new opportunity to work with Clifton Sanctuary Ministries' shelter for men. We need a small group (5 or 6) people to volunteer to prepare and/or serve a hearty dinner to the men on March 20. The meal will need to be prepared offsite and brought to Clifton. The meals should be low sodium and include no pork. The meal would typically include a meat, a vegetable, bread, a dessert, and drink. Food should be prepared to serve 30 people.

April - Earth Day

Our Earth Day celebration will feature an earth-friendly meal and plant swap. We are a partner congregation of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta's Earth Covenant Ministry.

May - Mad Housers Hut

We will build our third Mad Housers shelter for a homeless person. Our hut will become the living space for someone who is presently living outdoors, giving them shelter from weather and a place to store their belongings and sleep in safety. See Karen's photos of the last year's build.

June - Atlanta Community Food Bank

In June we'll sort food at the Atlanta Community Food Bank's Product Rescue center. It's intense work, but great fun.

November, December - Christmas in Decatur

We will again purchase, wrap, and deliver gifts for a needy family through the Christmas in Decatur program.

Ongoing - Stephen Food Pantry

The Stephen Food Pantry, housed at Rehoboth Presbyterian Church, is funded by and staffed by volunteers from Rehoboth and Emory Presbyterian. EPC volunteers are at Stephen every other week on Mondays and Thursdays, from 9 am to noon, supplying an average of 6 families each day with emergency groceries.

The congregation's support of Stephen is greatly appreciated. The pantry provided 11,700 meals in 2009. Please help keep the pantry full by bringing an item each week, or make a donation designated to Stephen.

Those in need are referred by the following agencies: Decatur Emergency Assistance Ministry (DEAM) 770-373-2300; DFAC, 404-370-5000; United Way, 211; Partnership for Community Action, 404-929-2500. For information on receiving assistance, contact one of these agencies.

Ongoing - Trinity Clothes Closet

We partner with Trinity Presbyterian Church (Decatur) to provide gently-used clothes for their clothes closet. Drop off bags of clean clothes at the church office. Please keep the bags to a medium weight (not the large contractor size) so they can be wrestled up and down stairs and into a car for delivery to Trinity.

Ongoing - Change the World

Drop your loose change into the change jar at the back of the church. When it fills up, we roll it, count it, and donate it to a ministry which will use it to make a positive change in the world. Change from June through August is going to the Decatur Cooperative Ministry to help prevent homelessness.

During March - May we collected $333.35 of change to provide food for children at the Ministry of Insured Salvation, an orphanage in Lesotho which we're connected to through to our PCUSA missionaries, the Dimmocks. From December 2009 to February 2010 we collected $640 for the Medical Benevolence Foundation for relief in Haiti.