| Click here
for current
and upcoming MISSION PROJECTS AND OFFERINGS.
Click here for information about Hunger and Food
Insecurity in the United States and Overseas
Click here for information about our Matching
Funds Program
The NHCC Mission Committee invites
participation in our volunteer efforts -- everyone is welcome including
friends, neighbors and visitors. The committee helps organize hands on service opportunities
that occur regularly throughout the year including monthly food donations for
a Roxbury food pantry, the pick up and delivery of Whole Foods Bread to
homeless shelters, preparing and
serving meals at Rosie's place, and volunteering at Metrowest Interfaith
Hospitality Network's program that provides temporary shelter and support
services for homeless families.
Throughout the year, the mission committee identifies special needs and
organizes offerings, activities and campaigns that are time
limited. These may include annual United Church of Christ
offerings, donations for relief related to current disasters, or special
projects such as raising money to pay for a young woman from Newton's sister
city, San Juan del Sur Nicaragua, to attend the National University for a
year. The NHCC mission committee invites ideas for special
projects. Contact the mission committee chairperson at mission@nhcc.net.
For
more information, you can email mission@nhcc.net
or contact the church office.
Interested in making a difference? Find out more about these
opportunities for volunteering and active participation.
Interested in contributing? NHCC provides financial support
for a number of organizations and appeals. The NHCC Mission Committee
organizes fund drives and has a discretionary fund that can be used to provide
support to special appeals and organizations. Some we have
supported include:
- 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, wreath-making, crafts created
by church school classes) and a variety of choices for gifts. Church members
have sold their own hand crafted items and donated proceeds to one of the
organizations supported by NHCC. 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. Products available
have supported 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 Eliot
Church Food
Bank, Heifer International, Church World Service, and the City Mission
Society. Generally scheduled for the first Sunday in December.
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- 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 through assembling and donating kits e.g. baby care
kits, hygiene kits, clean up buckets and school kits; financial donations;
and the yearly One
Great Hour of Sharing offering. Check
the Bulletin and Pulse for upcoming events.
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 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 collects
warm clothing in the fall, 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. In January CMS
organizes the MLK day of Service and Learning which NHCC sends a team
to. Watch for announcements in the Pulse and Bulletin. For more
information please visit www.cmsboston.org.
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- 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.
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- 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.newtonecoproject.com for more
information.
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- Family Promise Metrowest
- The Family Promise Metrowest Interfaith Hospitality Network
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.familypromisemetrowest.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.
Speak with Marianne Talis for more information.
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- 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! Bert's Apple Cake
Recipe is a good one. Upcoming dates for meal preparation and serving
are: November 8 (2012), January 10, March 19 and May 9 (2013).
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- 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.
- Community Day Center of Waltham
- The Community Day Center of Waltham supports homeless individuals and
those in need to shape and meet their life goals. The center is a day-time
drop-in center that provides support and services including: internet
and phone access; advocacy and referral; health access; legal access;
housing referrals; and job search assistance. Click
here for their website.
- Greater Boston Food Bank
- The Greater
 Boston Food Bank
(GBFB) is the largest hunger relief organization in New England and among
the largest food banks in the country. GBFB acquires food through food
industry product donations, food drives and financial contributions.
Over 14,000 volunteers annually help to sort and distribute donated food
products. GBFB stores, organizes, and distributes food through local
food pantries, community meal programs, homeless and residential shelters,
youth programs, senior centers and day care centers in communities
throughout the nice counties of eastern Massachusetts.
- For more information please go to www.gbfb.org/volunteerinfo
.
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- Heifer International
- Heifer international is an organization that works with communities
internationally to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth. They
provide gifts o
 f livestock and training to help families improve their
nutrition and generate income in sustainable ways. Each year our youth
group sponsors a table at the Advent Market raising funds for Heifer.
In addition the youth and adults of the congregation have participated in
activities at Overlook farm in Rutland MA. Click
here for the Heifer website.
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- Neighbors in Need offering
- Neighbors in Need is a special mission
offering of the UCC that supports ministries of justice and compassion
throughout the United States. One-third of NIN funds support the
Council for American Indian Ministry. Two-thirds of the offering is used by
the UCC's Justice and Witness Ministries to support a variety of justice
initiatives, advocacy efforts, and direct service projects.
- Click here for more information about
this offering. Click here for
more extensive information on the national United Church of Christ website.
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- Newton Highlands Congregational Church Matching
Funds Program
- The NHCC mission committee has dedicated funds to a matching gift program
that allows us to match gifts of congregation members to nonprofit service
organizations up to $250 per organization. Click
here for more information about our program and how to apply.
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- One Great Hour of Sharing
- One Great Hour of Sharing, as part of Our Church's
Wider Mission, is one of the four special mission offerings of the United
Church of Christ. Working in 138 countries, the offering provides
hope to people in more than eighty countries. The UCC works with
international partners to provide support to health, education, refugee,
agricultural, and emergency relief initiatives. Click
here for information about these programs.
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- Partners in Health
- Partners in Health is an organization that partners with poor communities
to combat disease and poverty. This international program focuses on
five main areas: access to primary healthcare; free health care and
education for the poor; community partnerships; addressing basic social and
economic needs; and serving the poor through the public sector. Click
here for more information.
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- Refugee Immigration Ministry
- The Refugee Immigration Ministry is an Interfaith, community-based
organization that focuses on community resettlement of asylum seekers and
refugees; job preparation through English and computer classes; spirtual
caregiving to immigrant detainees; and case management services. Click
here for more information.
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- Sister City
- Sister City, San Juan del
Sur, Nicaragua, is Newton's sister city.
- In 2013 we paid for one year of University education for a 19 year old
woman, Rosa L.. Rosa has been pursuing a course of study in
sustainable tourism. The student sponsorship program is made possible
through the A.
Jean Brugger Foundation. Click here for more information.
- 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. Adult students were forced to sit at desks
designed for children. NHCC raised money to build adult-sized desks for
these hard-working adult students. Click
here and see the thank you on the SJDS website -- scroll down the page
to January 2011.
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- UCC Appeals
- The United Church of Christ provides disaster relief both in the US and
internationally. NHCC organizes fundraisers to support these
efforts. Click here for
information about these programs.
- For
more information, you can email mission@nhcc.net
or contact the church office.
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