The committee members would like to thank the Congregation for its wonderful support of all HTLC Fall and Christmas projects. Your support made every program a great success. We had full food pantry shelves, presented many bins of food for the Back Pack Kidz, brought clothes for the Stillwater House residents, collected food pantry items at the Christmas dinner, assisted with bell ringing for the Salvation Army, and provided an overwhelmingly beautiful Christmas for many homeless children and their families at the Homeless Coalition.

But our work is far from finished. Please remember that the food pantry and the Back Pack Kidz projects are ONGOING, and need your monthly support. We will collect the food for each program every week, but will coordinate each Back Pack Kidz delivery at the last Sunday of every month, and deliver the food to them on the following Wednesday morning. A list of the appropriate single-serving foods can be found on HTLC’s website under Community Outreach. Please remember: NO PEANUTS OR PEANUT BUTTER, due to allergies.

As a fundraiser to support our projects we plan to sell submarine sandwiches on Super Bowl Sunday, February 5^th, after all the services. Please plan to buy a few for you Super Bowl Parties, or just to take home for lunch. You will receive flyers about the sale soon, so you can reserve your sandwiches ahead. Cost is $5 each.

We will have a bake sale at the March breakfast to benefit Habitat for Humanity in Charlotte County. All you wonderful bakers, please bring cookies, brownies, pies, etc. for the bake sale that day, when you come for breakfast, and be sure to take something good home with you to support Habitat.

Community Outreach will sponsor a food basket collection for Easter. Bags will be handed out to the congregation three weeks before Easter, on March 18^th. Please fill the bag with as many items as you can and return it to the altar area on Sunday, April 1^st. We plan to coordinate the baskets with our youth, who plan to supplement the bags with a “Give a ham a home” project.

Our members serve at the Homeless Coalition every 2^nd Friday each month. We have some very faithful families going every month, but could use more help from the congregation. Please see Joanne Donaldson to see how you can assist, or any Outreach member.

We also plan to continue work with Stillwater House and with an ELCA mission program, planned for the spring. See the website for details in the future.

We can use your assistance, donations of money and food items, and your prayers for this work of our congregation.

“Doing God’s Work With Our (Your) Hands.”