OUTREACH: DOMESTIC - JANUARY
St. Margaret's is active throughout the year.
OUTREACH REPORT #1
In December, St. Margaret’s was very full of a giving spirit! Not only did we generously support the Diocesan Adopt-a-Family Program, we also worked with the Plainview-Old Bethpage School District to support nine families in need.
Our very generous parishioners donated close to $3,000 to support the families in Plainview-Old Bethpage. These funds plus money we had in our Outreach account enabled St. Margaret’s to bring Christmas joy to some very grateful families in our community. There were 23 children that benefited from our giving, as well as their parents.
It is so amazing to see the wonderful outpouring of generosity from our church family! The social workers at the school were in awe when they saw the wonderful contributions from our church. They told me that St. Margaret’s is the only church in our area to support local families in our school district.
Thank you so much for your support. A special thank you to Christine K. for helping with the shopping as well as dropping off the gifts at the high school.
Happy 2020!
Kim
OUTREACH REPORT #2
Christ Church and Messiah Episcopal Church (Brentwood/Central Islip), a small, struggling parish, is trying to raise funds to hire a music director. We can help by donating saleable used clothing for their upcoming Garage Sale fundraising event. Their priest will pick up our clothing donations on Sunday, Jan. 5. This is a great time to start decluttering, surely an item on many a New Year’s resolution list!
Via the diocesan Adopt-a-Family program in December, we supplied ample gifts to a mother and her three childrenthrough St. John’s Hospital in Far Rockaway. We also supplied Christmas gifts to mental health patients via the hospital, a new opportunity this year.
At Thanksgiving, in partnership with The Lion’s Club, we shared a bountiful treasure of food with Food Not Bombs; Helping Hand Mission; and Tri County Youth Agency in Huntington; and to St. Ignatius Food Pantry in Hicksville. St. Ignatius, Tri County Youth and Food Not Bombs accept weekly donations. St. Margaret’s has a strong tradition of giving food each week to help hungry people in our local mission field.
Compassionate care is the gift of our Lord Jesus. We thank God we are able and willing to share in our blessings.
~ Barbara F.
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2019 DOMESTIC OUTREACH ARCHIVES
Nov. 2019
ADOPT-A-FAMILY
Kim announced at the Annual Meeting that social workers from the Plainview-Old Bethpage School District contacted us with a request to help eight local families this Christmas. Please call the church office if you are able to contribute money or goods to help make the holiday brighter for others, especially those suffering from urgent health issues, job loss or despair of any kind.
Feb. 2019
OUTREACH - MLK DAY OF SERVICE
TEAMWORK WORKS!
For the second year in a row, parishioners from St. Margaret’s teamed up with interfaith parishes, congregations, youth groups, scouts, furloughed federal workers and ecumenical volunteers of all kinds to create 20,000 individually packaged meals for distribution to hungry neighbors on Long Island. A special thank you to St. John’s Church, Cold Spring Harbor, for inviting us to participate in this annual Martin Luther King Day of Service. Participants from our parish included Christie, Jane, Barbara H., and Kim, Ayla and Gavin. We met some wonderful people and had a fantastic time!
It was a miracle involving hearts, hands and love for others. St. John’s parish warmly welcomed everyone.
OUTREACH UPDATE: JANUARY 2019
Words cannot express our thanks to all of you for another amazing Holiday Outreach drive to help out local struggling families in the Plainview/Old Bethpage school community. We had eight families given to us this year by the social worker at POBJFK high school – with each family’s circumstances more heartbreaking than the next - and through your generous financial donations, we raised over $4,500! In addition, some of the families had given gift suggestions for their children to help make their holidays a little brighter – and with your help, we fulfilled every single one of those family requests and more!
We are truly blessed to have a congregation that is so compassionate and caring towards those less fortunate. You never let us down. St. Margaret’s may be small in size but it has a tremendous heart.
Praise God for all His blessings!
~ Dan, Debbie., Kim and Christine K.
ARCHIVE: 2018 OUTREACH
DECEMBER 2018 FAMILY OUTREACH
HELP US PROVIDE FOR FOR LOCAL FAMILIES IN NEED THIS HOLIDAY
St. Margaret’s Church is now in our 8thyear of working with the Plainview/Old Bethpage community by collecting financial donations to help needy families in the POB school district. This year, we continue that tradition and ask for your continued financial support to brighten the holidays for these struggling families.
We are requesting monetary donations on the following Sundays – Dec. 2, Dec. 9 and Dec. 16 – to purchase gift cards for food, gas, and from some local stores like Target and Walmart.Checks made payable to St. Margaret’s Church with “Donation - Holiday Outreach” in the memo can be given to Dan, Kim or Debbie on any of these Sundays.
This year, we received a list of nine families that need our help.We will be telling you about some of these family’s situations each Sunday as we ask for donations. We will also have a sign-up sheet in the Narthex for specific gifts you can purchase that are being requested outside of the monetary donations that we will use to purchase the gift cards.
Following is just a sample of two of the families we are looking to help:
Family #5 is the “F” family.This family is a large family of six - where our student is the second oldest of four children. This 12thgrade student is a particularly kind and caring young man. Inspired by his brother who suffers from cerebral palsy, he is especially sensitive to students who are dealing with difficulties. In addition, the oldest brother in the family went off to college - and as a result – the 12th-grade student has become responsible for handling family documents and translating for his parents, who are immigrants. This student holds a job after school as well, where he and his older brother work to help support their family financially. The “F” family could truly benefit from groceries, gift cards, clothing and more.
Family #7 is the “A” family. This family is made up of two girls, one in 5thgrade and one in 1stgrade. This is a single parent family - as the girls lost their father to cancer in December 2016. The emotional heartbreak has only been intensified by the financial struggles the family is now facing. Ms. A could use grocery gift cards and/or gift cards to stores like Walmart and Target. The mom told us the girls would love a few toys and some new clothes. A few suggested toys and the girl’s sizes are listed on the Holiday Outreach poster in the Narthex.
There are seven other families – each experiencing some difficulty and a sense of hopelessness around the holidays. So please help us give a Christmas miracle to each one of these families.
Thank You and God Bless You All for Your Continued Generosity!
~ The St. Margaret’s Outreach Committee
“Lord, help us to remember those shut in and those shut out. Open our hearts to generosity and compassion for those whose needs are known to us, and to you alone.”
**OUTREACH ARCHIVE** - NOVEMBER 2018
St. Margaret’s year-round outreach efforts take on a special poignancy as we approach the holidays. On Thanksgiving Day, we give thanks for the abundance of God’s blessings. It’s a day to celebrate with family, friends and a table overflowing with turkey and all the trimmings. But Thanksgiving Day can also be a sad time for those who suffer from loss or financial hardship and do not have the means for a good, healthy meal. Fortunately, St. Margaret’s is always prepared to help people in need, and this month, you can contribute in the following ways:
Come to our PB&J Outreach Event
(Wed, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m.)
Every other month, a dedicated group of St. Margaret’s parishioners join friends from neighboring churches and temples at Plainview Reformed Church on Old Bethpage Road in Plainview. Together, we prepare 500 PB&J sandwiches to be served at the Interfaith Nutritional Network (INN) in Hempstead. These sandwiches are a nutritional extra – or sometimes the only meal – that their clients get for that day. If we get a good showing of volunteers, we can get the job done in 45 minutes. Won’t you spare an hour of your time this month to help a fellow brother or sister?
“Thanksgiving Sunday” on Nov. 18
On the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day – which we call “Thanksgiving Sunday” – we are asking each parish family to bring food donations to church to support the St. Ignatius Food Pantry in Hicksville. We are hoping to collect a sizable amount to bring to the food pantry before Thanksgiving so that people who are struggling financially in Hicksville and the surrounding communities can get a few extra food items for their own Thanksgiving dinner. Please keep these neighbors in mind when shopping for your own holiday meal.
Annual Holiday Outreach Drive for Needy Families
For the past eight years, we have brought much joy to needy families struggling in the Plainview/Old Bethpage community through a partnership we forged with the POBJFK High School social worker. Our longtime connection in this amazing effort, Betty Ianotti, retired last year, but we were hoping to hear from her replacement in regard to gathering a list of families to support this year from the school district. Unfortunately, we have not received any communication to date. I will continue to reach out to the school and hope to get a list in the near future. In the meantime, I ask each of you to please find it in your heart to write a generous check payable to St. Margaret’s Church – with “Holiday Outreach” in the memo. We’ll collect the checks on three Sundays, Nov. 25; Dec. 2 (our Annual Meeting); and Dec. 9.
Please be generous so we can continue to provide holiday miracles to these local families.
God bless you all for your continued generosity!
~ Dan M.
