Missions
“Our vocation is to see that no one suffers alone, that no pain goes unnoticed, and none is without meaning. We are the medium through which the cosmos feels its heartbreak but also the mediator of its comfort and resurrection.”
Eugene Kennedy
As a way of embodying our faith, of loving God and neighbor, we reach out to the world by supporting the following organizations and activities with money, volunteer time, and prayer:
PINS - Lund Family Center (www.lundfamilycenter.org)
The purpose of the statewide PINS program (Partners in Service) is to “partner” a local church or synagogue with a local non-profit service-oriented entity. Our church is partnered with the Lund Family Center which “helps children thrive by serving families, pregnant or parenting teens and adoptive families.” We help the LFC staff provide service, and in many cases we free up staff to perform more specialized services. Through this ministry we help over 120 families currently served by Lund through its various programs. Some of our LFC outreach includes mailing, phonathon, landscaping, and child care volunteering, and donation projects such as Mother's Day gift baskets, Back-to-School tote bags, and the Christmas Giving Tree.
JUMP (www.jumpvt.org)
The Joint Urban Ministry Project, Inc., known as JUMP, is an interfaith ministry to assist individuals and families in crisis. JUMP helps with emergency assistance, pastoral care, referrals, and advocacy for persons with low incomes. JUMP operates each weekday morning at First Congregational Church in Burlington, Vermont serving individuals and families in Chittenden County and occasionally those in nearby counties. The Charlotte Congregational Church is one of the twenty-four Chittenden county churches that support this mission with money and volunteer support.
Habitat for Humanity (www.vermonthabitat.org)
The mission of Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity (GMHFH) is to demonstrate the love and teachings of Jesus Christ in Chittenden County through constructing simple, decent, affordable energy efficient houses in partnership with working families who currently live in substandard conditions and have no possibility of obtaining a home by any conventional means. Habitat sells these homes at cost, with no profit and no interest. Habitat uses the mortgage payments from these partner families to build more simple, decent, affordable homes. For more than a decade, our congregation has contributed to GMHFH’s mission with our money, and by providing volunteers who help construct houses, and who serve on its Board and committees.
Salvation Army Dinners:
The Charlotte Congregational Church has been serving dinners to those in need at the Salvation Army for approximately 20 years. Currently with the help of fifteen church volunteers we serve about 100 people five times a year. Our church prepares and serves a home-cooked meal of 20 lbs. of macaroni and cheese, 12 lbs. of coleslaw and a variety of desserts. As food and fuel costs rise, our ministry at the Salvation Army becomes only more critical and vital for people living on our society's margins.
The Charlotte Food Shelf:
The Charlotte Food Shelf offers food and personal care items to families in the Charlotte area who are in need. Over 20 local families receive services from the Charlotte Food Shelf in in a year’s time. Our Church supplies the Food Shelf with a large space in the basement of the vestry to store and distribute food. The Church pays the utility bills for the food shelf and supports it with budgeted mission dollars. Church members donate food, person care items, and garden veggies throughout the year.
Crop Hunger Walk (www.churchworldservice.org)
In October we host a Church World Service CROP Hunger Walk. After many years of being a part of the greater Chittenden County walk we now have our own separate walk. Twenty five per cent of the more than four thousand dollars raised benefits the Charlotte Food Shelf. We are joined by Our Lady of Mount Carmel and other Charlotte organizations and take a beautiful walk through the Nichols Farm to help people in need both locally and around the world.
Our Church’s Wider Mission (www.ucc.org/ocwm)
By supporting our own denomination, the UCC, through Our Church’s Wider Mission, we are able to reach well beyond local needs to the rest of the world. Through our general support as well as special offerings taken throughout the year, we contribute to our denomination’s ministries in 85 countries as well as their cutting edge work towards economic justice, racial justice, peace, human rights, corporate responsibility, disaster preparedness and response, and more.