The God’s Work – Our Hands emphasis of our denomination is a great chance for all of us to be intentional about building service into our lives. Service is an important part of being a Lutheran Christian. We continue the ministry of Jesus in our own times as we work to help our neighbors with their needs.
This year’s campaign will be a 4-week one. It will last from September 13th through October 11th.
You are encouraged to find way(s) to serve – either on your own or with your family. There are lots of ways to serve. Some are organized and listed below. Other ways are things you can decide to do by taking initiative to help a needy neighbor, an older person, or someone with some kind of special circumstances. Servanthood is not just special projects – it is a way of life.
As you volunteer, please share how much time you spend serving by emailing our office at ZionElgin@Yahoo.com in order to allow us to develop a graph for the totals. Thanks!
- Art and school supplies for Lowrie School. Lots of kids don’t have access to the things they need for online school. Paper, markers, crayons and more are needed. In addition, kids need headphones to listen to classes on Zoom. For more information and a full listing of items, you can the download button above.
- Coloring cards for people who have cancer. The website gives instructions. Check out https://philsfriends.org/cards-of-hope/. Here you can download the cards and color them in, then send them to the office. They are giving cards a quarantine period before they are sent out. These cards provide encouragement during a very difficult time.
- Librivox for volunteering to read chapters of books that are in public domain. Here is the website to explore: https://librivox.org/. Click on the help button and it will provide information on how to be a volunteer.
- Help make dog play toys from old t-shirts. These will be delivered to the Anderson Animal Shelter. Here is a page with instructions for making dog toys from old T-shirts: https://barkpost.com/answers/how-to-make-a-t-shirt-dog-toy/
- Friends of the Fox Valley has opportunities for local volunteering (like cleanups, advocacy for environmental care, and more). You can start out finding ways to get involved with them by clicking https://friendsofthefoxriver.org/get-involved/
- Feed My Starving Children packs meals for children in places where poverty is a serious issue all around the world. You can help pack meals on-site in Schaumburg. To learn more about this and get connected, click https://www.fmsc.org/get-involved/volunteer
- The Elgin Crop Walk will be a virtual walk this year. Finds raised support hunger efforts in Elgin and around the world. The walk uses a combination of pledges and your walking efforts to raise funds. Zion has a team page where you can raise funds for the cause and then we are walking in a socially distanced group walk in the Zion neighborhood on Sunday, October 11th in the afternoon. The get started, share this link with your friends and on social media to encourage them to pledge and give online, and then do the walk – on your own or on October 11th with the group – you decide. Here is the link for fundraising: https://www.crophungerwalk.org/elginil/ZionLutheran
- Advocacy on current issues. One way to serve is to contact decision makers about issues you think are important and will make a difference. The ELCA has a whole page of current issues that are up for votes and decisions. The list is updated as issues come up. You can scan the list, find one or more issues that you think matter, and then follow the instructions on how to share your ideas to help it turn out right. https://support.elca.org/site/SPageNavigator/elca_action_center.html?NONCE_TOKEN=5AFD5F049EA57A3C5FD3B853B5D647DB
- We will add some more ideas in the weeks ahead and add a web page with links on the Zion web site. Watch for more ideas and if you have a good one – please share it with us so others can know about it too!
Here are some organized things you can look into: