I’m a few weeks behind, so this will be a little longer than usual to catch up.  As always, many thanks to those of you who tithe, making it possible to budget $1,000 each month for local benevolence. And thank you to those who give over and above. The recent cold snap meant that there was a very high demand for motel rooms and for help with pending electric service shutoffs. We disbursed about $2,000 in the first two and a half weeks of January. We are currently out of funding until the budgeted February deposit happens, but that's okay. We can't do everything, and we addressed a lot of serious needs.

During the three weeks we were open in December, and the first three weeks of January, we helped 8 families with rent, 18 with utilities, and pledged 14 motel nights. 

Preferred Family Healthcare has a new Housing Outreach Liaison, working out of an office at Callyn Heights, and she has called on behalf of a few clients this month. When we provide evidence of homelessness, via a form she provides, she is able to use that to help clients qualify for additional housing services.

As we did last year, we made a sponsoring contribution to the SB40 Community Engagement Conference coming up in March: this draws a big crowd of intellectually and/or developmentally disabled individuals, their families, direct service providers, and other local agencies who all work together to support individuals with disabilities. This year’s conference is Saturday, March 2, from 8am to 3pm at William Matthew Middle School.  The theme this year is to BE MAGICAL: Making My Life Magical. There will be 15 breakout sessions in three tracks, with sessions available for disabled individuals, support people/families, and community members.

We also paid the entry fee to a sober living home for a Preferred Family Healthcare client. I think I've written a little about those in the past, that the people in those homes immediately get a job and pay their own rent, but we sometimes help cover the entry fee, which pays their expenses while they wait for that first paycheck. PFH always attempts to access grant money first, but that is not always available.

One of the people for whom we paid rent is a single dad with a four year old.  He called for rent, and I made some gentle inquiries about whether the little boy had boots and snowpants, etc.  He did not, so our local benevolence angels took care of that need, thank you very much! I have an email group of about thirty people who are willing to receive requests for this sort of thing. If you would like to join the group, please let me know. It only takes 3-4 people to meet most requests presented this way, and it's kind of neat when parishioners tell me the specific personal reasons they called dibs on a particular need. Maybe they are doing it in honor of a loved one who used to take care of a similar need for people, or they have a child of the same age, something like that.

On December 18, Janet Dillavou came in to take stock of the brown bag situation, and then provided everything needed and assembled two dozen bags. She has also put together a few “family” bags with tuna helper, tuna, and vegetables for people who have a home and a stove to do some simple cooking. Those 24 bags were gone in about a month, which was really only three weeks if you count the Christmas closure, and then I really quickly threw together a few more. Demand was very high during the cold snap and snow storm, because the Pantry for Adair County was unable to receive supply trucks or offer distribution from their gravel parking lot. Lots of people used brown bags to help bridge the gap.

When Women's Ministry met for brunch on January 20, participants signed up for and provided ingredients for what was planned to be a batch of 24 bags, but everybody seemed to bring a whole lot of extra items. After eating and fellowship, they put together a whopping 47 brown bags! Being able to offer these to people who might call for other needs, is a very nice way to express our personal care for these individuals, especially when I have to turn them down for whatever request they might have initially made.
 
Our community-wide Collaborator Appreciation Luncheon has been scheduled for Monday, March 4, at the Newman Center. We are inviting all the agencies that participate in the big monthly Systems of Care meeting, as well as any local churches that have benevolence ministries. As part of the RSVP process, we will collect contact information and details about their funding process, to create a directory to be shared. The more connections we can make, the more needs we can all collaborate to meet, always with an eye toward comprehensive help that provides a real hand up instead of just a bandaid.
 
Thanks again to all of you who make this possible!
 
Together in advancing the Kingdom of God in Adair County,

Lynn ofs