August, 2010 Loose-Plate Recipient
EFFA
The Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA), which has been serving Boulder County families for more than 90 years, has been chosen as the recipient of St. John’s loose plate contributions for the month of August. Founded in 1918, EFAA is the “community safety net” for families with nowhere else to go to meet their basic needs. EFAA coordinates and provides food and shelter, utility assistance, minor medical expenses, transportation, and resource referrals for families in crisis.
A few “quick facts” about EFAA in 2009:
• EFAA’s basic needs program conducted 8,789 face-to-face interviews with 3,278 separate families, helping them with rent, utility bills, food, and other basic needs.
• Almost $500,000 was provided to assist clients with rent (to prevent homelessness), utility bills (to prevent shut-offs), minor medical needs, and transportation.
• EFAA emergency shelter and transitional housing helped 154 households (517 individuals) avoid homelessness. Eighty-six percent of these families moved on to find affordable, permanent housing in the community.
• EFAA’s furniture bank provided approximately $20,000 worth of furniture to 159 families.
• The Boulder food bank distributed over 350,702 pounds of food (valued at $592,686) to 1,912 different households in crisis.
• Two hundred eighty-six homeless children in Boulder, Lafayette, and Longmont benefitted from specialized casework provided by EFAA’s Children’s Services program.
• EFAA’s coordinating and volunteer efforts, bringing together the energy and care of several local organizations, provided a week’s worth of food and all the ingredients for a holiday dinner for more than 900 Boulder families.
EFAA did all that and more in 2009, while ensuring that 83 cents out of every dollar went directly to program services. Not only does EFAA use every dollar efficiently, but in 2009, their 620 volunteers contributed 13,705 hours — the equivalent of 6.59 full-time employees!
EFAA receives no state or federal money, and 55% of EFAA’s funding comes from private donations. St. John’s history of support to EFAA spans nearly 30 years of financial and in-kind contributions, and the St. John’s Foundation was a major contributor to EFAA’s recent capital campaign.
If you’d like to learn more about EFAA and how your loose plate contribution will help local families in need, go to www.efaa.org. And if you’d like to hear about the very real way in which EFAA has helped families, be sure to click on “Success Stories.”
Please dig deep into your pockets to help this old, dear friend of St. John’s!
July, 2010 Loose-Plate Recipient
Crayons to Calculators
Imagine being a kindergartener with no crayons, a fifth grader with no spiral notebooks, a high-school math student with no calculator. Imagine not having a backpack to carry your books to and from school. Many students in the Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley School Districts face these challenges every year. But in 2005, six local non-profit organizations partnered with the school districts to create Crayons to Calculators, a community-wide school supply drive to address this issue. This year, requests for assistance have increased 15%, and the goal is to ensure that 7,000 economically disadvantaged students start the first day of school with a backpack and basic school supplies.
Backpacks will be delivered directly to Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley schools so that students may pick them up before school starts. Working together, we can provide our local children with the supplies they need to succeed in school!
For more information about Crayons to Calculators, visit their website at www.CrayonsToCalculators.org.
May, 2010 Loose-Plate Recipient
Voices For Children CASA
Voices for Children CASA is an organization that recruits, trains, and manages Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) to work closely with children who are victims of abuse and neglect in Boulder County. After 40 hours of training, CASAs work with the guardian ad litem attorney, the Social Service caseworker, and everyone involved in the child's life to ensure that the best interests of the child are met. But the CASA's most important contribution is his or her regular and close contact with the child. In many cases, the CASA is the only constant for a child whose life has been turned upside down by the complexities of the child protection system and placement in one or more foster homes. It has been widely documented that a child with a CASA has a much better chance to succeed in life than one who does not.
If you're interested in learning more about Voices For Children CASA, please visit the McKeown Conference Room after Sunday's 9:30 a.m. service to watch a DVD or speak to some of those from St. John's who are involved in the program. And please give generously to help the abused and neglected children in our own community!
April, 2010 Loose-Plate Recipient
St. John's Youth Group Mission Trip to the Dominican Republic
In the "second world," an education is a powerful thing. When you live in an industrial town that is down on its luck, you don't have a lot of options. The Episcopal Diocese of the Dominican Republic has seen this need--and filled it.
In June, 15 youth and 6 adults from St. John's will travel to Haina, which is about an hour outside of Santo Domingo. There, we will work side by side with local Episcopalians on improvements for the school run by the local parish church of San Marcos. The work our youth will do will directly improve this school. Already, the school has a high rating, and by next fall, it will have climbed higher. While this school could be charging the significant tuition, it charges less than 10% of what it is permitted to charge so that it can serve more people. Currently there are 750 students from 3-18 years old enrolled.
This is an exciting mission opportunity for us because it will allow our youth to do truly interdependent mission work. We will supply the materials, but we will work side by side with the parishioners of San Marcos to complete our tasks. This is a mission trip that is about building relationships with people who live in a radically different way.
Our fundraising efforts continue, and we are making great strides in covering our costs and providing an affordable trip for our youth. Loose plate funds will go directly toward purchasing our supplies in the Dominican Republic. This will not only allow us to improve the school, but it will allow other improvements to be made. Moreover, it bolsters the local economy by providing jobs.
The Diocese of the Dominican Republic is a member of Province IX of the Episcopal Church. It is a lively and Spirit-filled part of the church. We will join this community for a week in June, improve the physical plant of the school, and we will find our lives transformed. We thank you in advance for your generosity through the loose plate program.
March, 2010 Loose-Plate Recipient
Casting a Wide Net With NetsforLife
Did you know that every minute a child in Africa dies from malaria? Or that a simple 9’x10’ insecticide-treated net — that costs $12 — can save three children from needless suffering and preventable death.
This month St. John’s joins the NetsforLife campaign, sponsored by Episcopal Relief and Development, to raise money for the purchase of these life-saving nets. Here’s how: Children’s Ministries will invite every St. John’s child to collect coins in a special little (net!) drawstring pouch that they will receive at the 9:30 a.m. family service on Sunday, March 7th. If each child collects $4 — enough to save one life — by Easter our children, working together, could save 200 lives!
In addition, NetsforLife will be the March recipient of the St. John’s loose plate collection. Our crucial support will help children, families, and whole communities move from sickness to strength. If you’d like to write a check, make it out to St. John’s and put “Nets” on the memo line.
Please watch for the little African “village” in the Rotunda, complete with one of the life-saving nets, and please, give generously!
February, 2010 Loose-Plate Recipient
Haiti Earthquake Relief
The February loose plate collection will go to relief efforts in Haiti. St. John's is participating in a diocesan wide fund raising program in support of two organizations that are directly involved the relief effort: Episcopal Relief and Development and the Colorado Haiti Project. At Bishop O’Neill’s request, the Anschutz Foundation has generously agreed to give the Diocese of Colorado a $75,000 grant to match dollar for dollar your contributions to bring relief and aid to the people of Haiti. For more information, please click here.
December, 2009 Loose-Plate Recipient
A total of 189 countries began the new century by signing the Millennium Declaration, pledging a massive global mobilization to cut poverty in half by 2015. Out of this historic covenant came eight measurable goals known as the Millennium Development Goals (see below).
The 74th Episcopal General Convention adopted Resolution D-006 in support of the MDG’s. It calls all Episcopal churches and organizations to contribute at least 0.7% of their budgets to support programs that foster economic development in the world’s poorest countries.
The St. John’s Outreach Committee has chosen to answer this call by selecting the More Than a Match Program as the loose plate recipient for the month of December. This program is an effort on the part of the Colorado Episcopal Foundation to unite all Episcopal congregations in the Diocese of Colorado to meet the challenge put forth at General Convention. This Christmas season please consider a generous gift to benefit the health care institutions of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem because the Holy Land needs our help.
The Diocese of Jerusalem operates four healthcare institutions in some of the most difficult and dangerous environments in the region, providing care and services for more than 50,000 patients every year. These patients receive comprehensive services from routine checkups to the most complicated and sophisticated surgical procedures. Common to all these institutions and varied services is one overriding commitment: to provide the best care possible to anyone who needs it, regardless of age, gender, religion, political affiliation, or ability to pay.
More than one billion people – 1/6 of the world’s population – live in extreme poverty. The dimensions of human poverty go beyond income: pandemic disease, widespread conflict, environmental degradation, chronic hunger, and a lack of access to education are all both causes and effects. Let’s join together with our fellow Anglicans here in Colorado, in the Episcopal Church, and the Communion in helping to reduce global poverty.
November, 2009 Loose-Plate Recipient
November's loose plate collection will benefit Community Food Share, a non-profit that provides needed, nutritious food to the working poor, the disabled and chronically ill, at-risk teens, seniors on fixed incomes, and the homeless.
More information can be found at the Community Food Share website.
October, 2009 Loose-Plate Recipient
FOCUS, an offender reentry mentoring program. The program helps reintegrate offenders into the community so they can learn to lead productive and satisfying lives apart from crime.
More information on this website.
St. John's Outreach Scholarship Fund: September, 2009 Loose- Plate Recipient
The St. John's Outreach Scholarship Fund was established to support worthy individuals engaged in teaching, study, missionary work, outreach, seminary education, and other activities that help spread the gospel throughout the world and/or improve relationships between Christians and members of other faiths. This month's offering will support Tori Webster as she teaches in Lebanon. If you'd like to write a check, make it out to St. John's and put "Outreach Scholarship" on the memo line.
Please join Tori Webster in the McKeown Conference Room after the 9:30am service on Sunday, September 6th to learn more about her experiences in the Middle East.
Habitat for Humanity Apostles Build: August, 2009 Loose-Plate Recipient
Flatirons Habitat for Humanity is working to organize an Apostles Build, and our August loose plate will support their efforts. In an Apostles Build project, 12 congregations come together to raise the money and provide the labor and prayer support to build a Habitat for Humanity House. Participating congregations raise and contribute equal shares of the $100,000 cost of sponsoring a home, and members of each congregation have the opportunity to help with the construction. Please give generously in August to help provide housing for a family in need.
Flatirons Habitat for Humanity website
If you’d like to be part of the Apostles Build labor crew, please contact Father Ted at 303-442-5246.
Crayons to Calculators: July, 2009 Loose-Plate Recipient
Imagine being a kindergartener with no crayons, a fifth grader with no spiral notebooks, a high school math student with no calculator. Imagine not having a backpack to carry your books to and from school. More than 5,000 students in Boulder Valley and 7,000 in St. Vrain Valley face these challenges every year.
Then, a few years ago, several area non-profit organizations created Crayons to Calculators, a community-wide school supply drive to address this issue. Last year, Crayons to Calculators provided backpacks with school supplies to 4,812 children from kindergarten through high school. With our help, they hope to help even more children start school with the necessary supplies this August.
There are three ways you and your family can help:
1. Donate a backpack full of supplies for a student in need. (One backpack of supplies costs $40-$100, depending on the grade level of the student.) Find a list of the necessary supplies at www.crayonstocalculators.org. Drop off your loaded backpack in the boxes located in the narthex or in the rotunda at St. John’s.
2. Contribute to the loose plate collection this morning or any Sunday morning in July. We’ll make a contribution to Crayons for Calculators, and they’ll do the shopping for us. They’re able to purchase supplies at deep discounts thanks to the generosity of local businesses. If you’d like to write a check, please make it out to St. John’s and put Crayons to Calculators on the memo line.
3. Get your business involved in the Crayons to Calculators corporate challenge. Visit their website at www.crayonstocalculators.org to get started.
Backpacks will be delivered directly to Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley schools so that students may pick them up before school starts.
Working together, we can provide our communities’ children with the supplies they need to be successful in school!
