Social Action
Our Fellowship’s Social Action Commitments include:
Manna House: Coordinated by Debbie Rice, our volunteers prepare and serve lunch for approximately 50 needy people once a month. Manna House is located at the Presbyterian Church on High Street in Newton. Lunch is served every Monday through Friday by volunteers from churches and organizations throughout the county. The food is provided by Manna House.
SCIHN (Sussex County Interfaith Hospitality Network): Coordinated by Jeri Doherty, our volunteers donate, prepare, and serve dinner for up to 14 homeless guests about four Fridays a year. We are a “support church” for Branchville Methodist, which houses the guests for the week. We also provide sleepover supervision on our designated Friday and provide a hot breakfast on Saturday morning. The guests are hosted by different churches/synagogues throughout the county each week.
People Help: Coordinated by Joan Karp and Audrey Nagel, we collect food donations for holiday food baskets in December. People Help provides many other social services, which some of our members have been involved in as individuals.
UUSC (Unitarian Universalist Service Committee): Coordinated by Jeri Doherty, we participate in the annual “Guest at Your Table” fundraiser to help support the work of this international UU agency. UUSC sponsors and funds community-based projects to assist the needy in many third world countries, as well as in the United States.
In conjunction with our RE children, under the direction of Lynn Sodora, we donate children’s mittens and hats and books annually to Project Self-Sufficiency, located in Newton. This year we will be contributing to a Native American children’s relief project called Spirit Rising. We will also be filling a punch bowl with pennies (hopefully many times over) for the international Heifer Project, which provides income-sustaining animals to needy families in third world countries.
Our Fair Trade project is administered by our Youth Group; they sell Fair Trade Coffee, Tea and Cocoa.
