As we exit the Christmas season and enter 2016, we are in need of volunteers to make casseroles for our Shelter guests. Since we only have volunteers prepare dinners 3-4 days a week, we rely on donations of casseroles and frozen dishes for the guys to eat on other evenings. Making casseroles is a great way to support the shelter on your own time – spend a couple of hours preparing the dish (cook it until its nearly finished), wrap it up and label it, and then drop it off any time during the week or at church on Sunday. We ask you to not to make anything with pork or nuts, but beyond that you are only limited by your creativity!
Being the Outreach Minister here at Old First, I get so many opportunities to be grateful. It feels like the last few posts I’ve written here have been thanking everyone for the many ways in which volunteers build and grow our Outreach Ministries. The holiday season provides us many opportunities to express gratitude, and I am so thankful for the many ways in which both members of this church and visitors give back. From Thanksgiving, where volunteers hosted our Shelter guests, prepared the meal, and sorted clothing, to Christmas and New Year’s, where Old Firsters hosted the shelter and prepared the meals (special shout out to April Smith and her family and friends for preparing both meals!). It truly takes a whole community to make this work possible.
Earlier this week, Teresa asked me for some data on the number of unique volunteers and guests we’ve had come through Old First in 2015. I wasn’t here all year, so I had to do some guessing, but even estimated numbers put things in perspective: We’ve had over 300 different Breakfast volunteers help out on Saturdays (and serve a total of 4,100 meals!), and upwards of 60 Shelter Dinner volunteers. Some of those volunteers came from our ten service camps. So as you consider just how many casseroles you want to make for the Shelter, remember that you are one of many crucial volunteers, a network of hundreds that makes Old First’s Outreach Ministries a reality.
