Outreach to Our Community and Beyond

Don't Forget the Newton Food Pantry!

Remember the Newton Food Pantry when grocery shopping. Bring your non-perishables to church on Sunday morning.The Newton Food Pantry provides a three-day supply of nutritionally balanced food items once a month to Newton residents that need their help, serving between 30-35 different families each week. Your contributions to the Newton Food Pantry help them continue to provide this necessary service. They are an all-volunteer, non-profit organization located in Waban.

Moments for Mission

February 12: Andover Newton Theological School – Founded in 1807, Andover Newton is the oldest graduate school of theology in the United States. The School offers a Theology and Arts program, Distance Education courses and curricula in the area of Faith, Health and Spirituality.

February 26: All Hands Volunteers – They are a non-profit organization committed to assisting disaster affected communities with recovery and rebuilding. They help families take the first step to recovery, provide a passionate, community based response, and start with simple work and help communities strive toward normalcy.

Shelter Cooking – February 4 and 18

This month Second Church will prepare meals for United Homes Adult Shelter, Dorchester on Saturday, February 4 and 18 from 2 – 4 p.m. in the church kitchen. The shelter provides 110 beds and meals to the poorest of poor men in Boston. They also offer many other transitional services.

Nancy Brown does the shopping, - the food expenses come out of the Mission and Advocacy budget. Head cooks provide the recipes and menu and are accompanied by a team of 4 or 5 volunteer cooks. Call Barbara Cancellieri at 617-244-2690 or email her at office@2ndchurch.org if you can help cook on February 4 or 18.

Child Sponsorship

The United Church of Christ continues to respond to the call to serve those in need in many ways, in many places. You may have seen ads on television showing a child picking through the rubbish in some impoverished country. Your “heart strings” like mine may have been tugged while you are asked to subscribe to this child’s support. There is just such a program available through our Global Ministries. Sponsorships are available in a number of countries, including the orphanage at Mt. Silinda, Zimbabwe, where the Masters and Donaldson families lived and worked. If child sponsorship is something you are interested in, speak to Mary Ann Donaldson or look at the information on the Mission and Advocacy bulletin board in Fellowship Hall.

The year 200 found members of our congregation active in mission in numerous ways. We received three UCC offerings: Neighbors in Need, One Great Hour of Sharing, and Strengthen the Church and one emergency offering for the devastation in Haiti. Folks shopped and prepared meals for 110 men at United Homes Shelter twice each month. New groups who cooked were the Senior High Youth Group, Barbara Joseph's Girl Scout Troup, and members of the Dalhousie Lodge, Newtonville. Weekly donations to the Newton Food Pantry were delivered. We collected Christmas cards for the inmates at Billerica House of Correction. We collected and delivered participated in City Mission Society's Christmas Shops, collecting and delivering gifts for those who were in most need during the holiday season. Fair Trade Coffee that benefits farmers and the environment was used at Coffee Hour. Folk of Second Church are members of boards of various non-profit organizations, providing business expertise and invaluable support.

Advocates, Inc. Advocates' mission is to help people with psychiatric illness, chemical dependency, developmental disabilities, or other problems in living. They provide community-centered services that empower people to deal effectively with their difficulties, to pursue their own individual aspirations, and to realize satisfaction in their relationships, their work, and their communities.

Andover Newton Theological School Founded in 1807, Andover Newton is the oldest graduate school of theology in the United States. The School offers a Theology and Arts program, Distance Education courses and curricula in the area of Faith, Health and Spirituality.

Boston Area Rape Crisis Center Founded in 1973, the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center is a community-based, grassroots organization with a mission to provide free crisis counseling and advocacy services designed to empower, support, and educate survivors of rape and sexual assault, their families and friends, and the professionals who work with them. Our gifts have changed lives for years and helped make BARC one of the most effective and innovative centers in the nation. Gifts mean that they can provide hope and healing to thousands of survivors of sexual violence every year and deliver revolutionary prevention and training, too.

CAN-DO Citizens for Affordable Housing in Newton Development Organization, Inc. (CAN-DO). Its mission is to own, develop, preserve, and manage affordable housing in Newton. In 2011 CAN-DO plans the undertaking of a new project which will create three affordable two-bedroom units in Newton Corner. One of the units will be for an individual with mobility impairment. All of the units will be affordable to families who would not otherwise be able to live in Newton.

City Mission Society - Transforming Individuals The City Mission Society is an urban social justice agency serving over 3,000 people each year. They are the oldest multi-service agency in New England, addressing the educational, economic and social needs of impoverished area residents since 1816.

The Congregational Library The Congregational Library was founded in 1853 by a group of ministers, out of awareness that an educated clergy is an essential ministry in congregationalism. It started with 57 books. Today the Congregational Library is a unique Boston repository of over 225,000 books and pamphlets documenting the history of American Congregationalism.

For nearly a century and a half, The Congregational Library of the American Congregational Association has been the archives for Congregational history and thought, a center for scholarship on both religious and secular topics, and a "loan/learn-by-mail-library." It houses the finest collection anywhere of books and papers about the history of Congregationalism, its Puritan roots and its influence in the formation of this nation.

Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries Their Mission: Mobilizing congregations and communities across economic, religious, racial, and ethnic boundaries so that, in partnership, we can work more effectively for a just society.

Franklin County Community Meals Program – Provides a total of five meals per week at three different locations and stocks two weekly food pantries in Turners Falls, Greenfield, and Orange, MA.

Hands on Disaster Response is a U.S. based, volunteer staffed, non-profit organization dedicated to timely disaster response and relief. The organization harnesses the power of volunteers to bring direct assistance to disaster-affected communities around the world.

Homes for Our Troops is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that builds new or adapts existing homes for handicap accessibility to meet the needs of our most severely wounded veterans. Through the generosity of donors and thousands of volunteers in communities around the country, we were allowed to give freedom and independence back to many more of our injured troops through the gift of specially adapted homes in 2010.

Just Peace Coordinator – This ministry is dedicated to enabling us to grow together as a community of faith seeking to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God,” while honoring Jesus’ invitation to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Metropolitan Boston Association Just Peace Coordinator
This ministry is dedicated to enabling us to grow together as a community of faith seeking to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God,” while honoring Jesus’ invitation to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Middlesex County Prison Coordinator’s Committee Middlesex County Prison Coordinating Committee meets here at Second Church on the second Wednesday of the month. Their mission includes education in matters concerning Billerica House of Correction and the Cambridge Jail, services to the House of Corrections, and advocacy around criminal justice issues.

Minister’s Discretionary Fund provides food assistance with supermarket gift cards to people seeking help from Second Church.

Neighbors in Need is a special mission offering of the UCC that supports ministries of justice and compassion throughout the United States.

Newton Community Service Center is a multi-service agency that strengthens children, youth, families and communities through educational programs and a network of support services. They promote social and emotional wellness and continuity of care. The agency serves a racially, ethnically, economically, and culturally diverse population from Newton, Waltham and surrounding communities.

Newton Wellesley Hospital Chaplaincy – Their goal is to provide pastoral care, or spiritual support, to help the individual connect with the personal values, beliefs and resources that provide meaning and comfort during a time of stress. This spiritual support may be connected to a traditional faith or be a personal expression of hope.