This past year brought many challenges to St. John’s. We have many Outreach programs and organizations that St. John’s supports in our community all year long. One of those organizations is THRIVE Peninsula, where we support their efforts to help the working lower income members of our community. Whether it was food assistance through the THRIVE pantry or rent and utility assistance through their financial counseling services, THRIVE also had to implement many new methods, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of our parishioners, Dan Clark, has been volunteering as a financial counselor with THRIVE this past year. Just prior to Thanksgiving Dan kept hearing a recurring theme from the individuals he was working with. In many situations, the parents had lost their jobs entirely or had hours cut back significantly. In some cases, the parent had to quit their jobs since child-care was not available due to COVID and they had to be at home to oversee virtual learning for their children. THRIVE was able to help many of these families with utility and/or rent grants to help them get caught up on their finances. The families were grateful for this assistance.
But the additional message Dan was hearing from these parents was that they had no idea how they were going to provide any type of Christmas for their children. Savings and credit card limits were exhausted. So, Dan approached Angela York, Executive Director of THRIVE, and our Rector Samantha to discuss what options might be available to help these children in our community. Within a week, a $5000 grant was obtained from the Charitable Trust at St. John’s and THRIVE identified the families with children in greatest need.
During the third week of December THRIVE obtained over 65 gift cards with these funds and they were distributed to the needy families by Dan, Samantha, Mark Riley and the administrator of the Charitable Trust, Bill Beach. All these families were so grateful for the help so they could now provide Christmas Cheer to their children.
Tears and emotions were had by many when the gift cards were delivered. It is the plan to hopefully expand this program to more families in 2021 and to have additional local Churches participate. This is another positive example of how St. John’s and the organizations it supports have combined efforts to assist our community and its children in a positive way.
Originally published in St. John’s Newsletter, January 2021.