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Outreach
Supported Organizations
Our Church members support 22 non profit organizations with their hearts and hands through programs organized and promoted by the Outreach Commission. Some if this support is financial, through the distribution of Outreach-appropriated funds, and some is labor, through hands on work done by our church members. This year the First Congregational Church provided support to:
Boston Medical Center Grow Clinic
First Congregational Church Youth Mission Trip
Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless
New Day Women's Residence for Pregnant and Parenting Women
City of New Orleans and Gulf Coast
Pilgrim Church - Rebuilding Fund
Protestant Guild for Human Services
Somerville Community Corporation
Woburn Council of Social Concern
UCC - Our Church's Wider Mission
UCC - One Great Hour of Sharing
Boston Medical Center Grow Clinic
Boston Medical Center 802 Harrison Avenue, FGH-3, Boston, MA 02118, 617.414.5251
www.bmc.org/pediatrics/services/Specialty/Development/GrowClinic/
The Grow Clinic for Children is an outpatient subspecialty clinic at Boston Medical Center. Children who are referred to the Grow Clinic have been diagnosed with condition called Failure To Thrive (FTT). Children with FTT have significant problems growing and are not keeping pace with weight or height gain when compared to other children their age.. Because malnutrition is both a medical problem and a social/economic condition, the clinic takes a multidisciplinary approach to the care of FTT children and their families. This approach recognizes that there is a relationship between a safe and secure family environment and the nutritional status of the child.
Our church helps through: Financial support
Casa Myrna Vasquez
P.O. Box 180019 Boston, MA 02118 617.521.0100
www.casamyrna.org
Casa Myrna is a Boston-based, multicultural organization dedicated to ending domestic violence in the lives of women and children through advocacy, prevention, and intervention. Comprehensive services include 24-hour access to emergency services statewide, two emergency shelters, three transitional living houses, and services such as mental health counseling, legal services, children's services, and educational outreach.
Our church helps through: Financial support
Dwelling Place
523 Main St. Woburn, MA 01801 781.935.6824
The Dwelling Place, operated in and by Woburn's United Methodist Church, serves dinners to people in need in the Woburn area. Members of local churches and organizations prepare and serve meals to approximately 25 children and adults.
Our church helps through: Members of our congregation prepare and serve Saturday night dinner once a month
Esperanza
Esperanza International Foundation
1611 116th Ave. NE, Suite 101 Bellevue, WA 98004 425.451.4359
www.hopetech-hosting.com/~seattle/us/
Esperanza's program focuses on long-lasting solutions that enable families to help themselves. Esperanza centers on a micro credit lending program to lead people to their hopeful future. Through this program, Esperanza nurtures entrepreneurs who are too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. The micro credit program integrates education, vocational training and healthcare in order to meet the most basic needs of individuals, families and communities. Results are immediate and dramatic. Families eat better, children are in school, health improves, houses are made safer, they dress better and have a positive outlook for themselves and their communities as their businesses become viable and they become economically self-sufficient.
Our church helps through: Financial support
First Congregational Church Youth Mission Trip
Every year the high youth go on a Mission Trip during either the April or the February vacation. The trip is intended to: (a) use the gifts of youth, energy and intelligence to make a difference in another community, (b) help our youth group become more cohesive and (c) to expose our youth to different communities and cultures. The group travels as cheaply as possible. In order to include everyone, the trip is offered to the youth for a fee that doesn't begin to cover the expenses.
Our church helps through: Financial support
Habitat for Humanity, Greater Lowell and Lawrence
Habitat for Humanity has builds and rehabilitates decent, affordable homes for low-income families in need of housing. Habitat families earn their homes. They provide at least 500 hours of "sweat equity" labor to build their own homes and other families' homes. They also pay a reasonable monthly mortgage that is interest-free. Volunteers are partners with prospective homeowners in building homes.
Our church helps through:
- Financial support
- Work groups from our church that participate at sites in Lawrence and Lowell about four times a year
Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless
15 Bubier St. Lynn, MA 01901, 781.595.7570
www.ma.homeless.org
The Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless operates a number of programs, including a Furniture Bank that supplies furniture and household items to families and individuals moving from homelessness to a home of their own and essentials to homeless children and children newly housed; identification and assistance of families and individuals at risk of losing their house; organizing of faith communities to address solutions to homelessness; the training of direct service workers on homeless issues and resources; programs to ensure homeless children can get an education; programs to ensure that disabled people needing shelter can assess it; programs to promote public policy initiatives
Our church helps through: Financial support
Mission of Deeds
6 Chapin Avenue, Reading, MA 01867
Mission of Deeds is a non-profit volunteer organization providing assistance to people in need, particularly those beginning a new life after having been homeless. Household goods and furnishing are provided to help people establish a new home. Mission of Deeds takes donations of furniture and household items in good condition and distributes them to those referred by social service organizations--all without cost to recipients, including delivery costs.
Our church helps through:
- Financial support
- Volunteers (often adults and teens) who deliver furnishings
MissionSAFE
PO Box 201060 Roxbury, MA 02120 617.592.7608
www.missionsafe.org
MissionSAFE is a non-profit community organization that works with families in the Mission/Roxbury area of Boston and focuses on at-risk youth. MissionSAFE provides a range of opportunities for participating families, including job training, academic tutoring, GED classes, music, dance and art programs, special field trips and community-building events. MissionSAFE is based on developing strong, trusting relationships with children, so that children feel that they are special and safe and can claim MissionSAFE as a place where they are cared for unconditionally. Using this relationship as a foundation, youth are supported in developing and strengthening life skills that can serve them in the larger world.
Our church helps through: Financial support
New Day Women's Residence for Pregnant and Parenting Women
242 Highland Ave., Somerville, MA 02143 617.828.8188
New Day, founded in 1989, is a 12-18 month residential program for pregnant and parenting women in recovery for substance abuse. It is a program of the Cambridge and Somerville Program for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Rehabilitation. Many of New Day's guests are homeless before they begin their stay at New Day. CASPAR attempts to save one life at a time so that recovery from substance abuse will be possible for each individual who enters on of CASPAR's doors to treatment.
Our church helps through:
- Financial support
- Annual donations of Mother's Day gift bags to the guests
City of New Orleans and Gulf Coast
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, our members have supported the rebuilding of the City of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast through a variety of efforts.
Our church helps through:
- Just Peace special offering recipient (Back Bay Mission, Biloxi, MS, 10/05)
- Assembly and donations of school kits through Church World Services (10/05)
- Mission trip to New Orleans with 16 members through UCC Disaster Recovery Ministry (7/06), and a second trip with 12 participants (7/07).
- Book drive for Martin Luther King, Jr., School of Science and Technology in Ninth Ward (1/07)
Pilgrim Church - Rebuilding Fund
540 Columbia Rd., Dorchester, MA 02125 617.282.0456
www.uccwebsites.net/pilgrimchurchdorchesterma.html
As a 144-year-old church serving the community of Dorchester, Pilgrim Church continues its long-standing commitment to minister to the neediest in the area, supporting many community-based service programs within the building. Such services include religious services and programs since 1862, childcare center since 1970, food pantry and thrift shop since 1970, and homeless shelter and related programs since 1990.
Our church helps through:
- Financial support of the capital campaign for the renovation and preservation of its building
- Funds donated to replace failed freezer (1/07)
- Annual donations of frozen turkeys on Thanksgiving
Protestant Guild for Human Services
411 Waverly Oaks, Rd., Suite 104, Waltham, MA 781.893.6000
www.protestantguild.org
The Protestant Guild for Human Services in a non-profit, non-sectarian human service agency for persons with special needs. The agency provides a wide spectrum of services to children, adolescents and young adults with a variety of developmental disabilities. The Guild services include The Learning Center, which is the school; Church Liaison, which reaches out to area churches; and, the Christmas Stocking Project, through which they deliver Christmas stockings to more than 2,500 nursing home residents and elderly individuals. The Guild's mission is to provide its students with opportunities to grow and develop to their fullest potential, through education, caring and respect.
Our church helps through: Financial support
Respond, Inc.
PO Box 555, Somerville, MA 02143 617.625.5996
www.respondinc.org
Founded in 1974, RESPOND is the oldest domestic violence prevention and assistance agency in New England and the second oldest in the country. They help families through emergency shelter, a 24-hour hotline, community education and outreach, counseling and advocacy services. While they serve women throughout Greater Boston, RESPOND's contract with the Department of Social Services gives them a special mandate to serve Winchester and the neighboring towns of Everett, Malden, Medford, Melrose, North Reading, Reading, Somerville, Stoneham, Wakefield and Woburn. Their new shelter, opening in the summer of 2007, doubles its capacity and allows sons up to 18 years old to stay with their mothers.
Our church helps through:
- Financial support
- Awareness-building through 11th Hour program on Domestic Violence (3/07)
- Easter Special Offering recipient (4/07)
Room to Read
87 Graham St., Suite 250, San Francisco, CA 94129 415.561.3331
www.roomtoread.org
Room to Read is a non-profit organization that seeks to intervene early in the lives of children and help provide them with an education and the lifelong gift of literacy. To increase the likelihood for success and long-term sustainability, it enlists community involvement, providing challenge grants that require villages to raise a significant portion of the overall expenditure for building a new school. It currently builds schools, establishes library and computer and language labs, provides long-term girls' scholarships in six countries, including Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam and India, Sri Lanka and South Africa.
Our church helps through: Financial support
Rosie's Place
899 Harrison Ave., Boston, MA 02118 617.442.9322
www.rosies.org
Founded in 1974, Rosie's Place helps poor and homeless women maintain their dignity, seek opportunity and find security in their lives through food and housing assistance, among other vital services. Approximately one-third of Rosie's guests have children. Each year, 74,000 nutritionally balanced meals are served, and 9,600 women choose free food items and fresh produce from its Groceries program. Also, nearly 3,000 women access services through Rosie's advocates for assistance with clothing, housing, medical services, educational and employment opportunities, legal advice, transportation, and emergency funds for eviction prevention and prescriptions. In addition, more than 500 women secure emergency and short-term housing, while advocates work with them to find permanent homes and secure the services they need. The Homelessness Prevention Initiative provides outreach to more than 130 women at risk of losing housing due to chronic mental illness. And, the Adult Education program provides more than 150 women with an opportunity to improve their skills and increase their self-sufficiency.
Our church helps through:
- Financial support
- Annual donations of Christmas gifts to children through our Christmas Giving Tree
Somerville Community Corporation
One Davis Square, Somerville, MA 02144 617.776.5931
www.somervillecdc.org
Somerville Community Corporation (SCC) is a membership organization that provides leadership for sustaining the city of Somerville as a vibrant, diverse and tolerant community. SCC develops and preservers both rental and homeownership affordable housing that responds to the needs of the larger Somerville community, as well as, the specific neighborhoods that the developments are located in. Its Housing Assistance Program, launched in 1986, has as its primary goal to stabilize families by accessing affordable housing and helping to maintain current housing. SCC also offers services and leads community organizing that supports low and moderate-income Somerville residents in their efforts to achieve economic stability and increase civic participation.
Our church helps through: Financial support
Woburn Council of Social Concern
2 Merrimac St., Woburn, MA 01801 781.935.6495 www.socialconcern.com
The Council of Social Concern assists more than 2,700 individuals per year, with the support of close to 250 volunteers. Founded in 1969 by a group of concerned citizens who wanted to promote a sense of "neighborliness" in the community and address the absence of quality, affordable childcare and housing issues. Today, the Council provides a range of services to address community needs, including safe, affordable, quality child care through our Children's Center and Family Childcare System; leadership training, interpretation, translation, and cross-cultural education through our Hispanic Program; parenting and wellness education and supervised visitation services through our Family Skill Building Program; food assistance and community resource education through our Food Pantry.
Our church helps through:
- Financial support
- Monthly contributions to the Food Pantry through our Little Red Wagon
- Annual donations of Christmas gifts to children through our Christmas Giving Tree
Women's Lunch Place
67 Newbury St., Boston, MA 02116 617-267-1722
www.womenslunchplace.org
Women's Lunch Place (WLP) is a daytime shelter that provides a safe and comfortable refuge, nutritious food and basic resources for women and children who are homeless and poor "in the spirit of respect and friendship, fostering a community committed to meeting the women's needs as they themselves define them." WLP serves about 1,000 of Boston's poorest women and children yearly with breakfast and lunch, basic necessities such as showers, laundry facilities, clean clothing, and personal care items, a nap room and a resource room where guests have access to computers, a fax, phone and copier machine. Its advocacy and legal assistance program helps with a variety of issues, including housing and eviction, immigration, substance abuse treatment and family issues. The resource room provides assistance in job and housing searches, computer skill development and other areas.
Our church helps through: Financial support
- Awareness-building through 11th Hour program on Homelessness (11/06)
- Collection of birthday gifts for WLP guests at All-Church Birthday Party (3/07)
United Church of Christ
The Outreach Commission helps the following UCC missions and programs through financial support:
UCC - Our Church's Wider Mission
Our Church's Wider Mission is the program name used to describe the work the United Church of Christ does beyond the local church-through Conferences, national ministries, and UCC-related institutions.
UCC - One Great Hour of Sharing
One Great Hour of Sharing supports self-help programs in more than 80 nations to build sustainable communities that enable people and communities to stand against and rise above hunger, disease, illiteracy, and other forces of injustice; provides emergency and long-term assistance to people in the aftermath of hurricanes, tornados, storms, floods, tidal waves, fires, explosions, technological disasters, civil strife, war, or other natural or human-caused events. One Great Hour of Sharing works in cooperation with Global Ministries, Church World Service, Action by Churches Together, Interchurch Medical Assistance, Foods Resource Bank, Oikocredit, Freedom from Hunger and hundreds of local partners around the world.
UCC - Neighbors in Need
Through grants, Neighbors in Needs supports ministries in the U.S. and Puerto Rico that address poverty, economic development, human rights, peacemaking, violence, racial and economic justice, environmental concerns, and public policy advocacy
An Open and Affirming Congregation
21 Church Street, Winchester, MA 01890
(781) 729-9180