APPLAUSE! from the Sacramento Bee

Kudos to: Northminster Presbyterian Church

Accomplishment: Members of church helped rebuild a home in Joplin, Mo., destroyed by tornado.

Details: The 13 members of the church on Pope Avenue in Arden Arcade did dry-walling and other work in one home and installed a bathroom in another. In the past five years, Northminster teams have helped rebuild 15 homes, churches and businesses damaged by flood and storms in New Orleans, Galveston, Texas, and Nashville, Tenn. They have tiled a church basement, installed floorboards and windows, added porches and painted.  

An Adult Mission Team (7 men and 6 women) from Northminster Presbyterian Church spent a week (April 14-21) in helping rebuild a home in Joplin, MO, destroyed after devastating tornadoes.  The team did all the sheetrocking, taping, mudding, sanding and some wiring in the home and also installed a complete bathroom at another home. 

In the last 5 years Northminster teams, under the direction of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance program, have helped in rebuilding 15 homes, churches, and businesses destroyed by flood and storms in New Orleans, Galveston, and Nashville.  Projects have included tiling a church basement, installing floorboarding, putting in windows, adding porches, and painting. The volunteers pay their own way plus expenses.  Rebuilding structures and families are the goals.     

BROWN BAG PROGRAM

Our Brown Bag Program supplies surplus food to seniors and handicapped individuals who qualify. All applicants must pre-register to receive this benefit. The food items are delivered by the  California Food Link and donated by members of our congregation. 

Each month we give food bags to 65 families. We know we make a difference in so many lives, and we would love you to be a part of it!

Our Brown Bag ministry is designed to help meet the nourishment needs of financially burdened senior citizens and handicapped individuals. We offer a full bag or box of non-perishable items (items vary by month); they may include dry pastas, rice, beans, canned foods and sauces, and when available, we include bread, produce, dairy products, and paper products.

Who Qualifies: SSI or lower income seniors (65 or older), handicapped individuals 30 years or older.  All new individuals registering will be placed on a waiting list until resources become available.

When: 2nd Wednesday of each month from 11AM - 12PM (Volunteers meet at 10:00AM to bag the food for distribution.)

Where: Northminster Presbyterian Church

Help Needed: If you are interested in becoming a volunteer for this mission, please contact the church office for more information.

Donations Needed: Non-perishable food, preferably canned items, paper products, and any monetary donation to help with distribution.

DYER KELLY SCHOOL

Aid is being provided in many ways to help the students in this neighborhood school as we offer our services to a  neighbor in need. Many of the children that attend the Dyer Kelly School are lower income. Northminster provides aid in a multitude of ways to both the school and the children that attend. We provide food supplies to help the children. This program is called our Friday Back Pack Program; it provides children with food to help them over the weekends when food is not as readily available as it is on school days.

We also conduct a sock drive in the fall that begins in August. Many of these needy children have worn socks or no socks at all. Our sock drive raises both donated socks and monetary funds to purchase socks for the children. Often times our socks are the only socks these children will receive through the year.

Another program Northminster is deeply involved in for the children at Dyer Kelly School is our Christmas Gift Program. Northminster collects, purchases and puts together 40-50 Christmas Baskets per year for families of the children of Dyer Kelly Elementary, to both aid in food supplies during the Christmas week as well as provide the children in the home with a little toy, book, or gift of some sort.

Who Qualifies: Children and families of children that attend Dyer Kelly Elementary School.

When: All year-round

Where: Northminster Presbyterian Church - Hunger Committee

Help Needed: If you are interested in becoming a volunteer for this mission outreach, please contact the church office for more information.

Donations Needed: Peanut Butter, Jelly, Bread, Milk, are all needed for the back pack program, as well as socks (youth size), toys, books, mittens, scarf's, etc... And of course any monetary donation to help with distribution, purchase of goods and resources.
 

HUNGER COMMITTEE

The members of the Hunger committee sponsors our weekly Harvest Table, annual Crop Walk, a Heifer Project International-emphasis event and other projects that remind the congregation that not all have enough to eat. This group meets the 2nd Sunday of each month at 8:45AM.

HARVEST TABLE

Each Sunday, gardeners may drop off fresh produce from their gardens and orchards before church at the harvest tables on the patio.  People may purchase this produce, by donation, before or after church.  The money and any remaining produce is donated to a local food closet.

LINUS PROJECT
Sometimes, just like Linus from the Peanuts Cartoon, a warm blanket can make you feel a whole lot more secure! Our knitters and crocheters create beautiful lap robes and blankets for folks in need. Our Linus outreach benefits over 80 different organizations!


CENTS- ABILITY
Just 2 cents a meal will go an amazingly long way in benefiting someone who is hungry.
Our coin donations support the Presbyterian Hunger Program in our community, nationally and globally!


HEIFER PROJECT
Heifer International is dedicated to the principle that if you give a person a fish, he eats for a day, teach a person to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. We celebrate our Heifer Sunday in May and provide families with livestock to truly enable them to sustain their family.

COMMUNITY GARDEN
Back behind our Sanctuary (we call it the back 40) lies our community garden, a verdant sanctuary for our members and friends with green thumbs! Each of our gardeners donates 10% of their produce to our weekly harvest table, enabling the proceeds to benefit our hunger programs. Spring and Summer months.

CHRISTMAS BASKETS
Each Christmas our Hunger Committee with the help of the Youth of our Church creates over 50 baskets that we deliver to families in the area that need a hand during the holidays. It is an incredibly moving morning, and to many of our members, sharing the baskets is about as close as one can get to the true meaning of Christmas. You can find out more, and see how you can help by reading about our Dyer Kelly Outreach efforts.

CROP WALK
They say that walking in someone else’s moccasins helps you to truly understand their life. Walking a 5 K to feed a stranger is yet another way. Every Fall we have a team from Northminster that dons our walking shoes for CROP. Join us!
 

MISSION TRIPS

This last year we helped rebuild 4 houses in Sliddell, Louisiana, a town on the north shore of Lake Ponchatrain outside New Orleans.

The devastation in New Orleans is still indescribable, and yet we know that we made a difference. We look forward to this years trip.