MLK Day Service Project
Each year, EPC partners with North Decatur UMC and the MLK, Jr. Service Project to help repair, maintain, and provide greater efficiency and quality of life for low income seniors. Through our Fall BBQ & Bluegrass Festival, we typically raise around $500 to defray the expense of these projects, and we provide volunteers along with North Decatur United Methodist Church.
Projects for many different skills and interests include the following:
* Indoor and outdoor cleaning and painting
* Patching and painting of interior walls
* Repair or replacement of screen doors
* Cleaning of gutters
Yard projects for youth and adults include weeding, trimming bushes, and raking leaves. There are plenty of small projects that one or two people can tackle in a short period of time, including sheet rock repair and replacing screen on the porches.
CHOA Meal Bags
Sometimes families find themselves spending days or weeks at a child’s hospital bedside. At the request of the social work department at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, we are making meal bags for parents who cannot afford to buy meals during their child’s hospitalization. They give out 20-40 meal bags a day, so at least 100 a week or 400 a month.
How can you help? Bring non-perishable individually-packaged food for a meal bag. If you prefer, you can give money and the needed food will be purchased. You can bring the food in bulk and place it in the back of the sanctuary. The supplies will be available in the Prayer Room in the fellowship hall for anyone who would like to assemble a meal bag and pray for the family the meal will nourish. Or you can create meal bags at home yourself. EPC member Lillian recommends her daily Lenten practice: make a meal bag, pray for the family it will serve, and give thanks for your own health and the health of those you love.
Each bag has:
- Cereal, breakfast bar, or oatmeal
- Tea bag or hot chocolate
- Can of soup, can of pasta, or mac/cheese packet (no Ramen)
- A fruit cup or applesauce
- A sweet treat cookie or granola bar
- A savory item (nuts, pretzels, chips)
- Boxed juice or V8
Mad Housers Huts – Annual Build
Every Spring, we host a Mad Housers build to provide a simple but sturdy shelter for a homeless person in our community. Each hut becomes the living space for someone who was previously living outdoors, giving them shelter from weather and a place to store their belongings and sleep in safety.
Clifton Night Shelter
The EPC Mission Team works with Clifton Sanctuary Ministries’ shelter for men. We gather a small group (5 or 6) people to volunteer periodically to prepare and/or serve a hearty dinner to the men there. The meal is prepared offsite and brought to Clifton. The meals are low sodium and include no pork, but typically include a meat, a vegetable, bread, a dessert, and drink. Food is prepared to serve 30 people.
Decatur Emergency Assistance Ministry
Please help keep the Decatur Emergency Assistance Ministry pantry full by bringing items from the following list each week or making a monetary donation marked “DEAM”:
Canned soups, boxed cereal, canned green beans, canned corn, canned pork and beans, canned squash/greens, canned carrots, canned tomatoes, canned spaghetti with meat sauce, canned stews, canned chili, small jelly, peanut butter, rice
Those in need are referred by the following agencies: DEAM 770-373-2300; DFAC, 404-370-5000; United Way, 211; Partnership for Community Action, 404-929-2500. For information on receiving assistance, contact one of these agencies.
Change the World
Drop your loose change into the change jar at the back of the church. Every three months we roll it, count it, and donate it to a ministry which will use it to make a positive change in the world.
Previous recipients have included the Decatur Cooperative Ministry to help prevent homelessness locally, the Medical Benevolence Foundation for relief in Haiti, and Ministry of Insured Salvation, an orphanage in Lesotho which we’re connected to through our PCUSA missionaries, the Dimmocks.
