A Letter from the Vestry and Clergy:
Fellow Members of St. John’s:
The purpose of this communication is to keep all the parish fully apprised of what St. John’s Essex is doing as a house of worship for the local community, let you know what opportunities are available, and plan for any other ideas that will ease the struggles of local folks. The church membership and leadership has been in conversation for the past several weeks,
attempting to find the best way to reach out to support our neighbors and community.
Initially, what
are
we doing in this time of extreme need:
Food Security:
--We have been in contact with our Shoreline Soup Kitchen & Pantries (SSKP and Food Bank). You may know that the SSKP has at this point cut off all Soup Kitchens.The SSKP Food Pantries' hours are now extended to help with the reduction in food for in-person meals.
--recently word came from the coordinator of SSKP that they may consider doing a “grab and go” offering and asked if we would be interested. St. John’s wished to participate; Ellen Pfarr quickly pulled together some volunteers, then the SSKP decided not to move forward. More on this below.
Veterans
:
--Ed Shyloski—co-chair of the MVAMP has been working closely with the Old Lyme VFW to reach out to veterans during this time and that effort is ongoing. St. John's will certainly help here when there is need identified.
-
Outreach:
--The vestry is conducting periodic calls to members of the parish
.
We are looking to check on them, see if there was need of anything, or any needs they saw we can meet. Many have in fact turned around and asked “what can I do”. These can be simple tasks-looking out for neighbors, grocery shopping, or running to a pharmacy.
--We have been trying our best to find out the needs within the parish, and no one has indicated a need. Is that the New England independence? We do want to find out the needs of the wider community as well.
--
Without question-we can do more
. We have had suggestions that perhaps St. John’s could do something like (i) make bag lunches (with all the safety precautions) and camp out at one of the Food Pantries during their open hours, as Food Pantry guests have to wait to go in one at a time, and maybe a table set up with bag lunches would help, or (ii) establish a routine “pick-up” spot
,
at set hours
(sustainably-every week)
for a bag of food which has been purchased or (iii) purchase and distribute food (gift cards)
to be picked up at the Church during set hours. These ideas will need volunteers-to run and staff.
--In addition to the April issue of
St. John’s Good News
, we are attaching below the recently circulated mail list of
all of the food and service options
around the greater community of which we are aware. This gives our parishioners an opportunity to see how they can offer themselves in a particular way or how they can get help. (individuals can pick time/place-that fits their schedules and circumstances)
SO----What can
we do and continue to do
, (on a routine
,
or “one off” basis?)
Where do we get the most effective use of resources, while we recognizing that we have a wide demographic with in the parish, people are limited by the need to:
---shelter in place
---not gather more than 5
---protect their own health (some already compromised)
St. John’s
is immediately beginning the following collection/donation program
. The SSKP has long been a valued partner, and we believe it has the most efficient distribution mechanism. So by the church donating funds there, (as well as encouraging parishioners who can purchase and drop-off food, we will get the most relief to impacted neighbors.
This will be funded with $10,000 of immediately available outreach funds:
--a
donation of $6,000 to the SSKP
--over next 8 weeks, the purchase and distribution of $4,000 of ADAMS food gift certificates-in $25/$50/$100 increments. (We will look for volunteers to staff a table-presumably at St. John’s on a dedicated time)
Finally-a weekly special collection will be dedicated to this crisis to add funds to each of these programs.
