A catalog of mission giving opportunities
The Joy of Giving is a tradition at First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto. It is a natural expression of our faith in Christ and our commitment to caring for people in our local community, our region, and the world. Through the Joy of Giving, you can indicate to which organization(s) your financial gift should be given. A local or regional and a global opportunity are given for each theme. Download the joy gift form. Make your gift more meaningful by honoring a friend or relative. Download gift cards below.
. . . Hope: YMCA Support Network; Heifer International
. . . Shelter: EPA CAN DO; Habitat for Humanity
. . . Care: Green Pastures; PET International
. . . Service: Sierra Service Project; Paul Jeffrey, Missionary
. . . Health: Opportunity Health Center; Maua Hospital Community Health, Kenya
. . . Education: Children’s Resource Center/Ecumenical Hunger Program; United Campus Christian Ministry at Stanford; St. Elena School, Mexico
. . . Green: Home Cares Equipment Recyclers; Solar Oven Partners, Haiti
Ministers’ Discretionary Fund
The Gift of Self: Volunteer opportunities
. . . Hope
YWCA Support Network
The first point of contact for most families served by the Sunnyvale-based YWCA Support Network is the crisis line. Trained counselors provide immediate crisis intervention, safety planning, and when appropriate, emergency shelter. Pets are often secondary victims of domestic violence, making victims fear to leave. The Support Network also shelters family pets. Once a client’s safety needs are met, individualized counseling, children’s therapy, and support groups help clients rebuild their lives. Through community events and media advocacy, the Support Network also raises awareness and encourages our community to act against domestic violence.
Gift card
My daughter … gave me the courage to leave my husband and seek a better life for both of us. Today I am proud of the woman I’ve become and prouder of the woman my daughter is becoming. When life on our own was scary and uncertain, I’d ask myself, ‘If my daughter were in my shoes, what would I tell her to do?’ Then I would do it. Today I am a public speaker for the Support Network, asking others to watch for the signs of abuse … and [I] try to help anyone they think might be in an abusive relationship.
Heifer International
Water buffalo are the perfect gift for pulling farming families out of poverty some of the poorest parts of the world. A family with a water buffalo can plant four times more crops because they can sow a field in days that once took weeks to plow and plant by hand. Plus a water buffalo provides fresh milk – a dependable source of nutrition and income to put toward clothing, medicine, and education. $250 provides a water buffalo for a family. Photo: Heifer International/Darcy Kiefel
Gift card
. . . Shelter
EPA CAN DO
East Palo Alto Community Alliance & Neighborhood Development Organization (EPA CAN DO) creates and maintains affordable housing and promotes community development. EPA CAN DO has developed more than 300 affordable housing units and assisted 3,200 people with home buyer, credit/budget, and financial literacy workshops. It launched the Anti-Predatory Lending Program to assist victims of predatory lending, initiated development of a Housing Coalition to advocate affordable housing in East Palo Alto, established a Farmers’ Market and a Local Business Directory.
Gift card
Habitat for Humanity
About 1.6 billion people live in substandard housing and 100 million are homeless. Habitat for Humanity is dedicated to providing decent, affordable homes for those in need. In clean, decent, stable housing families develop stability, dignity, and better health; physical safety and security improve; and educational and job prospects increase. Habitat for Humanity’s U.S. and international affiliates build durable, healthy and sustainable houses at the lowest possible cost. Photo: HFHI/Kim MacDonald
Gift card
. . . Care
Green Pastures
For more than 20 years, Green Pastures, a local mission project in Mountain View, has provided a home for children with developmental disabilities. Green Pastures is a haven for learning and growing with individualized care given with Christian love. Green Pastures has started a second home in East Palo Alto and seeks funds to remodel the original home in Mountain View to serve the children better.
Gift card
PET International
Personal Energy Transportation (PET) International brings mobility and dignity to those in developing countries who are unable to walk. PET began in 1994 when missionaries in Zaire called attention to the need for a mobility device for polio and landmine victims. PETs are hand-cranked tricycle wheelchairs built by volunteers and distributed in 80 countries. Three versions of PETs are made: Child and Adult Crank sizes and Pull PETs for those who do not have upper body strength. A gift of $250 pays for the components to construct one PET. Photo: courtesy PET Florida – Penney Farms/Delbert and Sandy Groves
Gift card
As a result of childhood polio, 16-year-old Lawrence Kamara’s lower limbs are paralyzed. Until now, he has been struggling to get to school, arriving late most of the time, and finding it difficult to participate in other social activities. With the provision of a PET, Lawrence said, “For my environment, this mobility is very much appropriate because I can go through the rough terrain to reach my school.” Lawrence is no longer late for school and is able to visit family and friends.
. . . Service
Sierra Service Project
Sierra Service Project (SSP) provides life-changing experiences through acts of service repairing homes in Native American and urban communities, and building homes in Honduras. Each summer, 1500 teenagers, 250 adult volunteers and 40 paid summer staff live, worship, and work together on different project sites. Their work results in more than 130 safer, drier and more comfortable homes each year. Program fees cover about 85% of SSP’s expenses. The remaining 15% of costs is covered by donations from congregations and individuals, and grants.
Gift card
Paul Jeffrey, Missionary
We support the Rev. Paul Jeffrey in the UMC Global Mission Partners program. Paul, a photojournalist, works for Response, the magazine of United Methodist Women. Paul also covers emergencies for Action by Churches Together, a global alliance of churches responding to disasters. Paul has filed stories from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, writing about everything from hurricanes to health care, massacres to indigenous rights, refugees to ecumenism. Paul spoke at our church in September 2010. Photo: KairosPhotos
Gift Card
. . . Health
Opportunity Health Center
The Opportunity Health Center provides health care services to the residents and unhoused clients of the Opportunity Center in Palo Alto. The Opportunity Health Center operates a licensed community clinic that offers primary care, mental health care, case management, and other services to adults and children. Currently the Health Center has a shortage of vaccines for immunizing clients against tetanus, whooping cough, and other diseases. Your gift will be used to purchase vaccines.
Gift card
Maua Hospital Community Health, Kenya
Since 2005, our congregation has supported the Community Health Outreach Program of the Maua Methodist Hospital in Meru, Kenya. This Program serves several outlying communities where no medical services are available. The Program’s staff cares for AIDS patients and provides HIV prevention education, family planning information, immunizations, malaria prevention services, TB testing, and more to the communities. In 2006 some of our youth and their leaders visited Maua Hospital to work on projects there and gave us a first-hand account of the Hospital’s vital medical outreach. Photo: courtesy Maua Methodist Hospital.
Gift card
. . . Education
Children’s Resource Center
The Children’s Resource Center is part of the Ecumenical Hunger Program located in East Palo Alto. Programs of the Children’s Resource Center include “Back to School,” which provides stocked backpacks, shopping trips for clothes and uniforms, and new school shoes; “Academic Mentoring,” an on-site tutoring program for middle school students; and “Health and Enrichment,” which enables children to participate in enrichment activities by providing transportation, sports equipment, art supplies, and scholarships for fees.
Gift card
When Patrisha Cherry donated a Christmas turkey to the Ecumenical Hunger Program (EHP), it was a continuation of a story that goes back to the early days of the organization. Patrisha is one of five Cherry daughters and life was hard for the family. When the girls’ parents divorced and their mother had a stroke, EHP supported the family with food and re-housing. Patrisha, now the mother of two boys and working at Stanford University, says EHP was vital to her at that time. “I would take any opportunity to give back what they have given not just to my family, but to the entire community.”
United Campus Christian Ministry at Stanford
United Campus Christian Ministry at Stanford (UCCM) is a progressive Christian fellowship that welcomes all students. Dedicated to exploring spirituality and social justice, UCCM values questions as much as answers. Programs include discussion groups, Bible study, Alternative Spring Break, service opportunities, Interfaith retreats, summer fellowships, meditation.
Gift card
St. Elena School, Mexico
The Santa Elena School in Mexico serves 60 Tarahumara Indian children, improving their lives through education, a balanced diet, hygiene, medical attention, and growth in the Christian faith. As a UMC Global Mission partner, our church supports a Person in Mission working at the school. Your gift will help provide two meals a day for the children, twice yearly visits from a medical team, and operation of the school. Photo: courtesy Ruidoso UMC, Ruidoso, NM
Gift card
Green
Home CARES Equipment Recyclers
Home CARES Equipment Recyclers is committed to decreasing needless environmental waste while increasing access to home health care equipment and supplies. Home CARES volunteers collect donations of clean, gently used durable medical equipment, such as wheelchairs and walkers, plus supplies for wound care, personal hygiene, and nutritional supplements. These items are given free of charge to people in need in the Bay Area. The reuse and redistribution of medical equipment and supplies helps keep seniors and the disabled safe and active in their communities and reduces the waste going to landfills. For information about donating or acquiring medical equipment or supplies, call 510-251-2273 or see homecares.org.
Gift card
Solar Oven Partners, Haiti
In Haiti, wood and charcoal are the primary cooking fuel, but they are in short supply and expensive. The Haitian people cannot afford this fuel source and neither can the environment. Deforestation is the root cause of hunger and poverty in Haiti. Through Haitian-directed solar cooking seminars, Solar Oven Partners, Haiti has provided more than 8,000 solar ovens and training in their use to Haitians. A gift of $125 provides a high quality solar oven, training, and shipping. Photo: UMNS/Rick Jost
Gift card
A practice the Solar Oven Partners has long encouraged, and one increasingly being fulfilled, is the use of solar ovens to develop a personal, cottage industry that markets baked goods. Ermante Doristyl bakes traditional Haitian flatbread in a solar oven and sells the bread. Ermante also helps others in her community who received solar ovens and training but are struggling with cooking a particular food or recipe.
Ministers’ Discretionary Fund
This fund allows our pastors to respond to special circumstances, such as to support opportunities that arise after budgets have been set, to help church members who need short term financial help, and to provide the homeless and hungry with bus tokens or meal tickets occasionally.
The Gift of Self
YWCA Support Network has opportunities for inexperienced and experienced compassionate and caring volunteers. For information, contact Lorraine Michelle, 408-541-6100 x117 or see supportnetwork.org.
Our local Habitat for Humanity has construction and non-construction opportunities for local volunteers. Learn more at habitatgsf.org.
Green Pastures welcomes volunteers to work behind the scenes, with the children, or with families of children affected by disability. To learn how you can help, contact Maria Powery, 650-965-2333 or greenpastureshome.org.
Contact our church Youth Director, Keri Onan-Levy, to learn about volunteer opportunities with Sierra Service Project.
The Opportunity Center has a variety of volunteer jobs. To learn how you can help, contact Kristin Chandler, 650-853-8672.
To learn about volunteer opportunities at the Ecumenical Hunger Program, contact Melanie Jones-Carter, 650-323-7781 or see ehpcares.org.
