Come Serve With Us! 

Current Volunteer Opportunities for Community Engagement

GPC Helps Our Neighbors

Through The Giving Tree  

Open December 2–16 

• Take a tag from the Giving Tree in the Narthex, shop for the requested item, and bring the UNWRAPPED item back by Sunday, December 16.
•  A complete list of requested items is available in the Narthex.
•  This is a wonderful activity for your family, small group, Sunday School class, neighborhood, etc.

Giving Tree items will help the needy through the following organizations: Interfaith Works Women’s Center, Prison Ministry, SOME, Summit Hall and Rosemont Elementary Schools, MCCH Men’s Shelter, and the Medical Benevolence Foundation of PC-USA.

GPC coordinators Alice Alexander, Cathy Lyon, and Cindy Zammit are seeking volunteers to assist people at the Giving Tree before or after each worship service. Please contact one of them for information or to sign up to help.

Help Cook for the MCCH Men’s Shelter! 

Together we can help our homeless neighbors!

GPC is partnering with Kind Works and Nourish Now to cook some great meals for the MCCH Men’s Shelter. Nourish Now supplies the raw ingredients for great hot breakfasts or dinners for 80 residents; GPC supplies the kitchen, and KindWorks and GPC supply the volunteers.

Upcoming Dates

Friday, December 14

Cooking Holiday Meals

at the Women’s Shelter!  

The Week of December 23–29 

 2 Taft Court, Rockville, MD

• Purchase food and other supplies for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
• Prepare 35 bag lunches (sandwich, fruit, veggie, and cookie), with your family or with a group. Note: GPC will again prepare lunches as a group in Lindsay Hall after the Christmas Day service. Please join us!
• Prepare, deliver, and serve a dinner for 35 people. You can join with other families or groups to do this

#Refugees Welcome 

Help Outfit an Apartment for a Refugee Family

“…I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” —Matthew 25:35

Have you been following the refugee crisis, feeling compassion but not knowing what you can do to help? Join KindWorks in their project outfitting apartments for refugees!

Weis Markets

Supplying St. Martin’s Food Pantry with surplus goods from Weis Markets

The Weis Crew goes to the store at 9:00 a.m. every Monday and Thursday and takes shopping carts to the bakery and meat departments to collect surplus items. Because GPC is a nut-free facility, the items are taken back to GPC to be sorted (nut-free bakery items are separated from those containing nuts or made in a facility that processes nuts). Nut-free items are placed in the GPC freezer to be used later for Communion, Sunday morning coffee hour, and SOME (So Others Might Eat). The remaining items are taken to St. Martin’s Food Pantry, just north of the church on South Frederick Avenue. The pantry gives groceries to the hungry every Monday morning. Food delivered to the Food Pantry on Thursdays is stored in their pantry and freezers until the following Monday morning.

Gaithersburg HELP 

Lending support to this local food pantry in many ways

Gaithersburg HELP is a year-round food pantry that has served the Gaithersburg community since 1968. This is an all-volunteer organization composed of 200 volunteers from more than 25 local congregations, including GPC. It provides short-term, emergency assistance to more than 3,500 families in need. Gaithersburg HELP provides 3-day emergency food supplies based on family size, supplies for infants, help with prescriptions, transportation to medical appointments or to obtain services, and other support and referrals. GPC provides financial support to Gaithersburg HELP, as well as donations of food and supplies. This organization is one of the recipients of the items collected during the Lenten “Feeding of the 5000” Food Drive that GPC members participate in each year. Gaithersburg HELP always needs volunteers to assist with telephone screening, provide transportation for clients, perform administrative tasks, or serve in the food pantry. A list of current volunteer opportunities, along with a link to the volunteer application, can be found here.

Rebuilding Together 

Helping provide low-income homeowners with safer homes

Rebuilding Together Montgomery County (RTMC) offers low-income homeowners safe and healthy home repairs at no cost to the recipient. Over the course of a year, RTMC repairs the homes of more than 100 families, reducing their financial burdens and improving the quality of life for more than 500 people across our county. RTMC’s critical services preserve safe and affordable housing, prevent homelessness, protect a family’s most valuable asset, and stabilize our vulnerable communities.

GPC works with RTMC to provide home repair services. This program depends entirely on volunteers to repair and/or renovate the homes. Projects take place for one day in April. Volunteers do not need to be GPC members; anyone older than 14 years of age with any skill level (but experts are also needed!) can participate. GPC offers scholarships to volunteers who cannot afford to contribute toward materials for the projects.

Prison Ministry 

Connecting with local inmates

GPC’s Prison Ministry is a group of volunteers affiliated with the St. James’ Prison Ministry—a consortium of local churches serving Montgomery County’s inmate population and their families at the three correctional facilities: the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Boyds, the Montgomery County Detention Center in Rockville, and the Pre-Release and Re-Entry Services Center, also in Rockville. Volunteers are involved in a wide variety of activities, including meeting and praying with inmates, collecting and distributing religious literature and greeting cards, mentoring and participating in job partnership programs, and providing other services as needed.

SOME (So Others Might Eat)

Serving up French toast and more on the first Tuesday of every month

GPC provides financial support to SOME, and volunteers from GPC prepare a hot breakfast for 400–500 individuals at the SOME dining room on the first Tuesday of each month. SOME serves a nutritious breakfast and lunch at its main facility on “O” Street in northwest D.C. every day of the year, and GPC volunteers have been providing the hot breakfast once a month for more than 30 years!

Volunteers can participate in two ways: (1) join the GPC SOME Crew and help cook breakfast when you can, and (2) donate the ingredients for breakfast. The SOME Crew is simply a list of people who have said that they would like to go to SOME with a group from GPC and help prepare breakfast, whenever they are available. Each month an e-mail is sent out to see who is available, and the group is assembled based on the responses.

Food items are donated by volunteers each month. Donations needed include eggs, bread, syrup, apple sauce, and orange juice. Additional items (ham and milk) and whatever items are not received as donations are purchased with support from the GPC Community Engagement Ministry budget. Food donations should be delivered to the GPC kitchen on the Sunday before the first Tuesday of the month. For more information on how to join the GPC SOME Crew or donate food for the breakfast, contact Steve Olin.

The Dwelling Place

Summit Hall Elementary School 

Supporting teachers and students in many ways

GPC has developed a bond with our neighboring public school, Summit Hall Elementary School (SHES). Volunteers have helped for years—in the classrooms and assisting teachers with paperwork—and several GPC members are on staff there. Many students are recent immigrants and new to the area. The parents are usually busy working multiple jobs and do not have the time or language skills to participate in school activities, so SHES doesn’t receive the support through PTA membership and homeroom moms that many other schools do. For GPC’s 50^th anniversary, it was decided that half of the funds collected would be given to SHES for after-school programming. Keith Jones, SHES principal, was presented with a check for $10,000. In the spring of 2015, after-school programs began with Big Learning, a science program; SandBell Fitness; and a martial arts class. As many as 20 volunteers from GPC have been active at the school—working in classrooms and the book room, helping with the outdoor Move It Monday running activity, reading in the classrooms for the Read Across America Day, helping with the PTA book fair and game night, collecting BOX TOP$ FOR EDUCATION, chaperoning on field trips, donating supplies, and preparing materials. GPC’s middle school youth group spent a day cleaning up the grounds and labeling new books during their summer ServeFest week one year. GPC members have donated many winter coats to help families whose children needed warmer outerwear. We have also been able to support the Linkages to Learning program associated with the school, which reaches out to low-income families, offering medical care and counseling. These families always need toiletries, cleaning supplies, and gift cards to grocery stores.

The staff is fantastic and we are welcome to work in almost every aspect of the school’s programs. Our volunteers are constantly thanked by staff members whom we assist, and even by those with whom we don’t work directly! There are many opportunities to use your skills at SHES, including the following:              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Classroom Help – assist teachers and students in the classroom

Morning or afternoon, once a week

• Move It Mondays – promote outdoor running during recess

Punch the students’ cards and keep them from cutting corners 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. on Mondays, weather permitting (Volunteers should         arrive by 10:40 and will finish around 2:15.)

• Update School Sign next to the Street – post informational messages          using individual letters      Bi-weekly and/or for special days and school events

Anytime during the school day (text is available from the front office)

• Teachers’ Book Storage Room – re-file books, label new books

Flexible – anytime during the school day

• Lunch Room Helpers – help students with lunches

11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. any day of the week

• BOX TOP$ FOR EDUCATION – collect box tops from grocery items by participating manufacturers and put them in the little boxes     located in Lindsay Hall and GPC’s main office anytime

For more information, contact Marilyn or Stuart Morrison.