I received an email recently from Stacy Deyerle who is the ministry leader for Care Ministries at Gayton Baptist Church in Short Pump. One misconception about community service in HCPS School is that you can’t get hours doing work for a church, synagogue,or mosque. While you cannot get hours for being anything considered “evangelical,” such as teaching a Sunday School class, there are many volunteer activates in churches that do count. Here are some from Care Ministry that you can take part in, or similar project in any house of worship:
- Planning and hosting a food drive. Ms. Deyerle can meet with the group ahead of time to discuss some of the logistics if they wish. There are lots of different ways to do a food drive, from simple to complex.
- Preparing “birthday bags.” She can meet with a group before and/or after the project if you wish. The idea is to make bags with cake mix, icing, candles, plates, and napkins in a decorative gift bag. The students would need to collect the items and assemble the bags. Any amount of bags is welcome since they will be given out all year. These will be given for kids during their birthday month.
- Preparing “winter warm up” food supplement bags to be given to families prior to winter break to help supplement for kids who would normally get free / reduced priced meals. This is fall project, and would have to be completed by early December. As always, she will happily meet with the group.
- Collecting items for a “stockings for seniors.” They give a gift to their senior adult visitors (which is nearly half of who we serve) that include practical items in a stocking. Normally, they have a group at church that prefers to assemble them, but they do need help collecting items. A student would be welcome to attend the assembly event to see it through to the end. Must be completed by Thanksgiving.
- Planting a garden of any size, and harvesting items to donate to the pantry. Spring through fall project.
- Collecting books for kids and teens for our free bookshelf to encourage reading in the home.
You can also visit their Facebook page for new things they are doing. If you have any questions, you contact Ms. Deyerle at sdeyerle@hotmail.com and care@gaytonchurch.org.