Spirit of Peace UCC -- Our Actions

Monthly Community Hall Supper

2011-12-23T15:11:00.000-08:00

We will be serving dinner at the Issaquah Community Hall on Sunday, February 5, 2012, contact Michele Williams at mickiwms@gmail.com if you would like to help serve or provide food for the supper.

Tent City, January 20th, 2012

2011-12-23T15:09:00.000-08:00

We will be serving dinner to the residents of Tent City Issaquah on January 20th. This will be Tent City’s last night in Issaquah and we hope to make it a special evening. Please consider ways that you can be of service. Contact Michele Williams at mickiwms@gmail.com if you are able to help.

Microlending

2010-06-06T22:09:00.001-07:00

Our youth were given $1,000 to participate in a microlending project. They selected three entrepreneurs from across the world who would benefit from loans from the church. The church is partnering with Kiva, who has funded over $100 million in loans across the world.

Here is who the youth selected and how the money is going to be used:

Togo, Africa. Born in 1980, Ms. Ama GBowia is a mother of a family and is illiterate. She used to work in small-scale commerce and in subsistence agriculture. The development of the city and urban spaces are now depriving her of arable land. Her only income-generating work involves making and selling bean served with oil and gari (cassava flour). To cope when prices are high, she requested this loan to stock up on beans and cassava flour.
Peru. Rosalía is 41 years old, is an exemplary mother, and is married to 36 year old Jerson, with whom she has four children. They live together in their own house, which is made of rustic materials based on tree leaves and wood. She is considered a woman of "a thousand trades" because, in order to provide for her family, she never rests. For this reason, she has been working in agriculture for 20 years and also prepares food, breeds and sells guinea pigs and pigs, and sells beauty products, all of which are very beneficial to her because she has many acquaintances who are among her favorite customers. Her favorite of the tasks she undertakes is harvesting the delicious mandarins that she grows, as they are sold both in her local market and in the city, and bring in a little extra profit. On the other hand, her husband works for the "Water For All" program, so he is responsible for the household expenses. She just bought a 3 hectare plot of land and plans to sow products of local origin, and she also wants to install a food stall in an available space in their home. This is her sixth loan from MFP, and her companions in the loan group are very happy with her as she is supportive and honest. With the loan that she is requesting, she will buy 20 sacks of fertilizer and a thousand banana seedlings and will plan them on the land that she just bought. She also wants to hire some workers to help her with this task.
Peru. Soledad is a member of the Señor Justo Juez village bank. She lives in the district of Huanchac, in the department of Cusco. Soledad is 57 years old. She is married and has 3 children, 30, 27, and 21 years old. She has a grocery store but a few months ago decided to also sell shoes by catalog. She offers three catalogs and allows people to pay her in two payments. She collects the first half when she delivers the shoes and the second the following month. She sells handbags and all kinds of shoes and sneakers. In the future, she would like to set up her own shoe store. She is a very charismatic, optimistic person. She tells us that she pays for all her merchandise in advance, but that to encourage her clients to purchase from her, she allows them to make two payments instead of one. She would like to have this loan to pay for the orders she making from Lima.

Mission Report

2010-06-06T22:00:00.001-07:00

We had a very successful mission program this year. This church is small but mighty!

Month/Date	Project	Notes
August	School Supplies/Backpacks	We filled 3+ vans of school supplies.
September 27	Coats/socks/blankets for homeless	Gathered bags and bags of warm weather clothing for the homeless.
October 15-November 1	Worth your Weight in Food	We delivered 1438.82 pounds of food to the Issaquah Food Bank.
December 31	Tent City	Served a New Years Eve turkey dinner to tent city
December	Adopt a Family/homeless kids in Issaquah	Made Christmas a little brighter for our adopted Christmas family, a single mom with three kids.
January 25	Tent City	Served dinner to Tent City as they entered Issaquah.
February	Cupcakes	Supported Heroes for the Homeless with hundreds of homemade cupcakes for their annual "Let them eat cake" drive.
April - May	Plant a Row for the Hungry	Began our first Pea Patch and had the first harvest.

Planter 1 is planted!

2010-04-18T19:40:00.001-07:00

The first planter box of our pea patch is planted! We have potatoes, radishes, peas, lettuce and onions. Thanks to all the work crew, what a great day for it!

Adopted Christmas Family

2009-12-20T16:32:00.001-08:00

Thanks to everyone who made Christmas a little brighter for our adopted Christmas family, a single mom with three kids. The donations were amazing, your generosity is overwhelming.

Adopt-a-family

2009-12-13T19:30:00.001-08:00

Our Christmas Family

I know it is late to ask for more generous giving on your part, but this is the situation. Think of the family requesting Christmas help from the Issaquah Food Bank and finding that no help is possible. We would like to be the help for that family.

The Issaquah Food Bank has graciously allowed us to sponsor Family #396. Our family includes the mother age 30, and three children. The oldest two are girls, ages 8 and 6. The youngest is a boy age 4. I’ve attached the specifics on each person, and will share the guidelines issued by the Issaquah Food Bank. I questioned the location of the family and find that Issaquah stores such as the Issaquah Safeway and the Target store make good choices for gift cards.

Our latest possible collection time is Sunday the 20^th, which gives us a week to put this together. I will have boxes at church tomorrow (the 13^th) in case you read this email and have a chance to respond by then

Guidelines for Baskets

1 All boxes should be labeled with the number provided #396.

2 Please do not include any perishable food items. Due to lack of space, we recommend gift certificates for our clients Christmas dinner.

3 Suggested items to include are: candy, stocking stuffers, cookies, paper goods, detergent, soaps, shampoo and toiletries.

4 Please mark all wrapped gifts. For example – Boy age 6. If you wish, the gifts could be placed in a large bag labeled with the age and sex of the person for whom the gift is intended. Please include wrapping paper, ribbon, tape and tags if possible. We would like to help parents feel involved by wrapping Christmas gifts themselves for their family members.

What does our Christmas Family look like?

Our Christmas Family
Gender	Age	Shirt Size	Pant Size	Shoe Size	Clothes Needed	Wish List
F	8	10	10	2	Warm Clothing	CD Player & Barbies

F	6	8	8	13 1/2	Warm Clothing	CD Player & Barbies

M	4	6	6	10 1/2	Warm Clothing	Bike & Cars

F	30	Large	12	7	Gift Card for Food

Plant a Row for the Hungry

2009-11-17T22:05:00.001-08:00

We have an exciting mission project coming up! We have confirmed one pea patch plot (and are working on a second) in Issaquah. All of the food we raise will go to the Issaquah Food Bank. This will be an exciting project for all ages. Thanks to our Master Gardener friend Wally for leading this!

Tent City date confirmed

2009-11-17T22:03:00.000-08:00

We are serving at Issaquah's Tent City on January 25th. If you'd like to join, there are many opportunities to serve, either by cooking, serving or cleaning up.

Worth our Weight

2009-11-01T22:03:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to everyone's generosity in making our food drive a great success! We delivered 1438.82 pounds of food to the Issaquah Food Bank today and it was the biggest delivery of the week. Here is a picture of the kids with the food loaded up and ready to deliver - in the rain!

Many thanks to Paula for making this happen and to Wally for getting us into the Food Bank today.

Coats, socks and blanket drive

2009-09-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a note from our friend, Tricia Lapitan, founder of Heroes for the Homeless, in regard to our recent coats, socks and blanket drive. We delivered many bags of warm necessities that Tricia and team will directly deliver to our homeless neighbors.

Thank you for the opportunity to worship with you yesterday. It was a pleasure. Thank you also for your insightful questions and interest in supporting the work of Heroes for the Homeless. I will stay in contact with Julie and Cindy about fundraising and donation drives. Please keep us in mind for garage sales, sock drives, and opportunities to help bring awareness to the many issues that encompass homelessness.

Sincerely,
Tricia Lapitan

School supplies and backpacks

2009-08-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

Thank you for all the school supplies for August's mission project! We filled 3+ vans of school supplies for our local schools!

Maundy Thursday PB&Js

2009-04-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

We made 677 sandwiches for Heroes for the Homeless!

Sock drive

2009-03-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

We partnered with some friends at Heroes for the Homeless to deliver socks to some of our area's neediest. We rounded up a couple hundred pair of socks that were delivered on March 14. Thanks to the Heroes!

Worth our Weight in Food

2008-10-31T19:49:00.000-07:00

With the hope of helping families and children who don't have enough food for their tables, Spirit of Peace UCC's youngest children kicked off a Food Drive a few weeks ago to benefit the Issaquah Food Bank, which -- in the face of today's economic climate -- has had way too many bare shelves and not enough food to feed the many hungry families that come each week seeking help and support.

Our kids called their project, "Worth your Weight in Food," and the 11 smallest children added up their combined weight, which totaled 659.5 pounds. With a small congregation of about 45-50 members, we knew this was going to be a challenging undertaking! What we didn't count on was the incredible outpouring of support from all of you, as well as your friends and neighbors who you encouraged to contribute. We even had some little trick or treaters who filled a wagon full of food on Halloween night with food for the hungry!

In the end, we not only made our goal, but we surpassed it, by far! It took three truckloads to get all the donations to the Food Bank, because, all together, we raised over 1,670 pounds of food donations, more than 1,000 pounds over our original goal!

Thank you so much to all who contributed their time, talents, and energy to make this such a great success, especially to Paula Harper-Christensen and Abby Christensen for all their work with the children and to Wally Prestbo, who does regular pick-ups and deliveries to the Food Bank, for letting us all in on a Sunday morning to deliver the food and to give us a tour!