St. Mark's Episcopal Church

The third Thursday of each month we host a free supper for anyone wishing to attend. We focus on good tasting, nutritious, homemade foods. We make sure to distribute fliers at the food pantry, the senior services lunch and senior housing complex. We are in our second year of this project and have seen our attendance grow nicely. Christmas Adopt a Family Many families receive generous food baskets from our community’s Lion’s Christmas Basket project, but St. Mark’s makes the delivery extra special for one family. After getting a family’s name, we contact them for specific ideas on gifts for the children and adults. A tag is created for each item and put on a display in the gathering area. Each year the tags are quickly taken by members, who purchase the items. We wrap them on a Sunday then deliver them, along with the food items to the family.

St. Mark’s is honored to have a member serve as coordinator for our area’s CROP Walk. We always have members walk and sponsor, as well as serving as workers for the event.

A current fun project is our ongoing collection bucket for spare change posted at the entry to the sanctuary. We are collecting for the year with the intent of purchasing a goat through the Episcopal Relief & Development. As quickly as the container is filling, we are confident that we might be able to purchase two or three goats when it comes time to count the funds.

The women of our ECW use some of their fundraising income to support outreach. Locally they give cash to the food pantry, Wings of God (post incarceration ministry for women) and United Christian Services. On a global level they purchase mosquito nets via Nets for Life and donated a scholarship for a child in Dominican Republic.

St. Mark’s has a long history of support for community ecumenical projects. Each year we provide vegetables for the Community Thanksgiving Dinner. In years past we staffed the story rooms for Community Vacation Bible School, while in the last three years we shifted to a role as a financial supporter. Each week we collect and bless foods to be donated to the ecumenical Eleanor’s Pantry (name for deceased St. Mark’s member Eleanor Miller). We regularly give to the United Christian Services fund via designated alms collection and also donate space for an area 4-H club.