The NHCC Mission Committee organizes service opportunities and invites
participation in our volunteer efforts. The Mission Committee works with
church members to find appropriate charities and strives to provide our
congregation with many different ways of serving, including meal preparation,
food drives, walkathons, educational opportunities, and fundraising. For
more information, you can email mission@nhcc.net
or contact the church office.
- Advent Market
- NHCC's Advent Market (formerly the Alternative Giving
Market), is a way to celebrate gift-giving during the holiday season while
making a positive impact on our world. Held in early December, the market
features a family friendly atmosphere (lunch, wreathe-making, crafts created
by church school classes) and a variety of choices for gifts. Organizations
featured at the Advent Market fall into one or more of our key mission areas:
Feed the Hungry, House the Homeless, and Keep the Creation. In 2009,
products were available to support 10,000 Villages, Equal Exchange (Fair
Trade) products, Metrowest Interfaith Hospitality Network, Rosie's Place, and
Church World Service. In addition, there were opportunities to make donations
(in the name of a friend or family member where appropriate) to the Elliot Food
Bank, Heifer International, Church World Service, and the City Mission
Society.
- Church World Service
- Church World Service (CWS) is a cooperative ministry of 35 Protestant,
Orthodox and Anglican denominations, working to eradicate hunger and
poverty, and providing sustainable self-help and development, disaster
relief, and refugee assistance around the world. For more information about
the organization please visit www.churchworldservice.org.
NHCC supports CWS by participating in the CROP Hunger Walk, the yearly One
Great Hour of Sharing offering, and by assembling CWS Hygiene Kits. If you
would like to assemble one or more Hygiene Kit,
click here for a list of supplies.
 City Mission Society
- The City Mission
Society of Boston (CMS) is an arm of the United
Church of Christ working for justice and for concerns of the poor in the
inner city. CMS strives to unite communities and transform individuals through
service, education, and advocacy. Its programs help youth and adults achieve
their full potential while providing opportunities for communities and
congregations to get involved in social action and change. NHCC
contributes gifts to the CMS Christmas Shops and includes the CMS in our
Advent Market. We also collect mittens, hats, and scarves on a "Mitten
Tree" every winter to donate to the City Mission Society. For more
information please visit www.cmsboston.org.
- Communion Sunday Food Donation
- On the first Sunday of every month, NHCC members are invited and encouraged
to bring offerings of non-perishable food items to church. While donations of
food can be made throughout the month, we make this a special focus of the
first Sunday as part of our monthly Communion service. Donations are brought
up to the chancel by the ushers as part of the morning offering. All donations
go to Roxbury's Eliot Church Food Bank as part of our "Feed the
Hungry" mission.
- Eco-Teams
- Newton's Eco-Team Project helps its members reduce household
energy use and save money. Eco-Teams (groups of 5 to 8 people from different
households) meet three or four times to work through a fun, easy-to-use
workbook called The Low Carbon Diet, which shows, step-by-step, how to
dramatically reduce CO2 output in just a month's time. To find out how to be
part of an Eco-Team contact Jay Walter at entasis@rcn.com
or Bonnie
Glickman at bglickman@mindspring.com.
Visit www.NewtonEcoTeams.org for more
information.
- Greater Boston Food Bank
- On the last (non-holiday) Friday of every month, members of NHCC
volunteer at The Greater Boston Food Bank. Members meet in the church parking
lot at 8:30 and carpool into Boston. The morning shift at the Food Bank runs
from 9:30 to noon. Once there, volunteers work as a team (often alongside other
groups) on an assembly line
inspecting, sorting, and repacking donated items. This is a wonderful time for fellowship and helping feed hungry
neighbors. The Greater Boston Food Bank provides meals for over 83,000 people
each week. A whole new state-of-the-art Food Bank, with all "green"
construction, started serving the hungry in September of 2009. For more
information please go to www.gbfb.org/volunteerinfo.
- Metrowest Interfaith Hospitality Network
- The Metrowest Interfaith Hospitality Network (MIHN) is a cooperative,
interfaith partnership offering hope to homeless families with children
through safe transitional shelter, meals, and supportive case management as
they seek permanent housing. For more information please visit www.metrowestihn.org
. There are multiple ways to participate in this program
from donations of specific items to cooking a meal for the guest families or
volunteering at MIHN's day center in Natick. Very specific information about
the needs of the day center and guest families can be found at
mihn.pbworks.com. NHCC plays an important role as a support congregation to
Wellesley Hills
Congregational Church. Our goal this year is to train ten new volunteers. To find a training session that you can attend,
click here.
- The Middlesex County Prison Coordinating Committee. Inc (MCPCC)
- MCPCC is committed to ministry of the Middlesex County prisons (the
Cambridge Jail and Billerica House of Correction). Composed of faith
communities throughout Middlesex County, MCPCC provides support for the whole
prison system: correctional officers, the staff, the administration, and the
prisoners. Monthly meetings at Second Church in Newton usually include a
speaker such as Attorney Lee Gartenberg (prison conditions, the courts, and
legal issues), Sheriff James Di Paola (prison reform), or Sue Burkart (founder
of Children of Incarcerated Parents). Detailed minutes of an evening's
discussion inform the entire MCPCC membership. MCPCC is active in criminal
justice issues and supports CORI reform and restorative justice Additional
activities include projects such as a prisoner art contest, a clothing drive
for newly released prisoners, and currently a prisoner writing contest. For
more information please visit www.mcpcc.info.
- Rosie's Place
- Rosie's Place is a sanctuary for poor and homeless women. It
offers both emergency and long term assistance to women who have no place else
to turn. It relies on volunteers to accomplish its work and accepts no
government funds. NHCC donates about $1,200 worth of dinners to Rosie's Place
annually and sells pins made by the women at our December Advent Market. If
you would like to help make a dinner for Rosie's Place, please contact Marianne
Talis. Apple Cakes are always needed! (LINK) Bert's Apple Cake Recipe. For
more information please visit www.rosiesplace.org.
- Sister City
- In Newton's Sister City, San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, the
Free High School for Adults provides "second chances for people who
thought they might never get any." . The regular high
schools in Nicaragua accept no one over 18 and no woman who has had a baby,
so this high school fills a huge educational void. Classes are on Saturdays
so working people can attend, and the school is recognized by the national
government. Currently adult students are forced to sit at desks designed for children.
Our church is raising money to build adult-sized desks for these
hard-working adult students. For $22.00 each, Nicaraguan craftsmen can build
desks from native materials. Our goal is to collect enough to fill three classrooms with adult-sized desks. Please contribute what you can to help our
Sister City.
- Whole Foods Bread Pick Up and Delivery
- On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday unsold bread and pastries are
picked up at closing time (10 PM) at Whole Foods in Newton Four Corners. In the
morning, the bread and pastry are delivered to either the Pilgrim Church in
Dorchester or to The Pine Street Inn in Boston. The average value of each pick
up is $500. We are looking for more volunteers to back up our regular
drivers and ideally to add a Saturday night pick up. Our neighbors in Boston
really depend on these deliveries. If you are interested or would like more
information please contact Marian Reynolds.
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