Community Giving and Special Services

September 30, 2023 Community Giving and Special Services

1 Days left to achieve target

There are many ways to help in your community, as well as globally. One of those ways is through monetary donations. Throughout the year, St. John’s Lutheran Church hosts special collections that allow for you to donate to a variety of organizations that can benefit not only our community, but also across the world. Here are some of the special collections and who they benefit.

St. John's Thanksgiving Service Fund, Advent Fund and Lenten Fund are split evenly between three organizations:

Feed the Bay – Benefiting the Anchor Bay School District, this program’s mission is to eliminate childhood hunger on the weekends. This benefits children who receive free or reduced-priced lunches at school by providing a backpack full of nutritious and easy-to-prepare foods for children to take home on the weekends when school meals are not available.

ELCA Good Gifts – Provides critical support to the ministries and programs that mean the most to you and the people you love. Choosing the best solutions that will make the biggest impact from an over 50 plus projects catalog. More than 90 percent of your gifts directly support their programs. Less than 10 percent is used for their administration and fundraising.

Samaritas – Currently spanning the state’s Lower Peninsula with more than 60 program sites in 40 cities that include: Adoption, Foster Care, Senior and Affordable Living. Their new Americans program offers refugee resettlement, job training and school readiness. Disability services are offered through group homes and in-home supports. Other support services include: Home Health, community services, prison to community reintegration for women, and they have the largest family homeless shelter program in the state.

Extending the Feast Fund

Gleaners – Headquartered in Detroit, Gleaners operates five distribution centers in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston and Monroe counties and provides food to more than 500 partner soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, and other agencies throughout southeast Michigan. Each year, Gleaners distributes more than 45 million pounds of food to neighbors in need! This results in an average of 100,000 meals distributed each day to families in need across our region. Gleaners also provides nourishing food and nutrition education to more than 200,000 children a year. Every dollar donated provides three meals and 92 cents of every donated dollar goes to food and food programs.

World Relief Fund

St. John’s World Relief Fund goes toward Lutheran Disaster Response.

Lutheran Disaster Response is a church that is a catalyst, convener and bridge builder. They collaborate with other disaster response organizations and religious entities in the United States and around the world. Lutheran Disaster Response strives to help the church continue to be a church in the midst of disaster – following Christ’s call to bring hope and healing to our neighbor in need. Some key areas of work include:

Providing emotional and spiritual care for people who have been affected by a disaster and for leaders who respond to a disaster.
Coordinating volunteers through our local affiliates.
Assisting refugees in a holistic way by meeting the varied needs of the community.
Promoting disaster risk-reduction by helping communities build their assets thereby reducing the effects of likely disasters.
Providing long-term recovery efforts by addressing the unmet needs months of even years after a disaster strikes.

When the dust settles and the headlines change, Lutheran Disaster Response stays to provide ongoing assistance to those in need.