Mission Action Recap

Helen Mezzera and Caroline Gaskins have run the Mission Action program of the church for the past 12 months (from July 2014-June 2015).  One of the duties of Mission Action is to donate $100 a month to charities around the globe.  The most recent charity our money went to is Christian Church Homes, Resident Care Fund.  Christian Church Homes is in the business of creating, building, and providing affordable senior housing.  They allow seniors to “age in place.”
   
Looking back over the past year, this May’s offering of $100 went to a group of wonderful people who feed the homeless every Friday by the library in downtown Vallejo.  In January, $100 was sent to support the fund established by the Greek Orthodox Church for a young boy who was was critically injured in an auto accident.  In December, our money went to the Solano AIDS Coalition to help those who are battling this incurable disease.  The gift went to the Contra Costa/Solano County Food Bank in November, 2014.  188,000 individuals were served in 2014 and 20 million pounds of food was distributed which was enough to make 16 million meals.  In October we supported The Sparrow Project which is a ministry of First Baptist Church which feeds the hungry, continuing this amazing effort despite the great damage to their building in last August's earthquake.  In August, in addition to encouraging our members to participate in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, we donated our $100 gift to that worthy effort.  Last July, the gift went to The Solano County Friends of Animals.
   
In addition, over the past year, we have supported Week of Compassion, Reconciliation Ministries, and Church World Service (though the CROP Hunger Walk and Blanket Sunday) at different times and in different ways.   In each case, $100 Mission Action gifts were added to the money donated by members and friends of our congregation to these causes, so that we could increase the amount given to those outstanding organizations.

Besides these gifts, we continue to support the four special Disciples of Christ offerings we have which are Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.

Of course, this is in addition to our on going Mission efforts including collecting non-perishable food items every week in church to donate to the Amador St. Hope Center, and our garden, the produce of which also gets donated to either the Hope Center or the Sparrow Project, plus our biggest annual Mission Action effort, the Global Holiday Faire which last year raised over $15,000 for 18 non-profit organizations.  It has been quite the year in terms of reaching out to those in need, and we strive for an even better year going forward.

And a big Thank You! to Helen and Caroline for their leadership for the past 12 months and to Caroline who will continue in this leadership role for the next year!