St Stephen's Episcopal Church

Each year, St. Stephen’s hosts The Winter Nights Shelter in our Parish Hall. There are a group of homeless families and older adults that take shelter from the winter cold in churches around the Contra Costa Area for one week at a time. We will be hosting these families March 10^th- March 17^th

St. Stephen's is looking for volunteers for the Winter Nights program. We need help making dinner, making breakfast, cleaning up in the mornings, organizing activities for the children after dinner and sleeping over. Don’t be overwhelmed, there are many simple ways to help!

Please stop by the table in the Parish Hall after church on Sunday and sign up to help make our guests feel welcome. For more information, contact Debbie Hughes, 376-0262, hurried@comcast.net; or Jennifer Kirtland at 377-0180, jskirtland@comcast.net.

This is a wonderful way to directly be of service to those that need our help.

COMMON HOPE: Travel with a Purpose
Go to Guatemala with us!
Another team will be spending September 23-October 2, 2008, in Guatemala working for Common Hope, the wonderful family development project there that St. Stephen’s supports. Come and join us!

We have 8 people who've said "yes" and are looking for about 4 more. Some of the days will be spent at the Common Hope center in Antigua, some at New Hope Village, the new town they're building outside of Guatemala City, and some at the new center they've just begun, San Rafael El Arado, a completely indigenous Mayan village near Antigua. We might get involved in any of a variety of tasks--some hands-on construction, or painting, or working with the children in the village school, or cataloging books in the library, or doing simple tasks in the pharmacy or medical clinic, and we'll have a chance to visit with some of the project's families and children and learn about their circumstances. Cost will be about $1,700 depending on airfare. Spanish is helpful but not necessary. Young people 16 or older are welcome if accompanied by a parent.

Common Hope provides a full range of services to families who agree to keep their children in school and actively participate in improving their own economic circumstances. In the past several years, many St. Stephen’s parishioners have gotten involved with Common Hope, a program that gives help and hope to desperately poor Guatemalans. The families that walk through Common Hope’s doors are often barefoot, live in one-room shacks made of cornstalks, and have little access to medical care, clean water, basic sanitation, education, or jobs. While the project’s work centers on keeping children in school, which is a major challenge in such a poor country, it believes a comprehensive and integrated approach toward the entire family’s problems is necessary to provide a stable floor from which the family can improve its situation. Common Hope's Family Development Center in Antigua and New Hope Village, the new town being built outside Guatemala City now serve 2,400 children and their families – a total of about 8,000 people.

If you want to go, call Sandy Smith right away because we’d like to schedule a meeting soon to tell you more about Common Hope and answer any questions you may have. The cost will be about $1700 including airfare. Young people 16 or older are welcome if accompanied by a parent. If you would like to know more about Common Hope, sponsor a child, or make a donation, information is available at http://www.commonhope.org.

Contact: Sandy Smith (925) 376-4322

OKTOBERFEST ! Thank you to the entire Outreach Committee for putting on a delightful event! The food was absolutely fabulous, the German band was great fun, AND we raised over $22,000 for our Outreach Projects!!!! Anne Baker chaired this fun event, with many hours of help from JoEllen Peterson and many others who worked hard to acquire donations, plan, shop, and cook food, and provide publicity. SEE PHOTOS!

ONGOING OUTREACH PROGRAMS AT ST. STEPHEN'S

Angel Project The "Angel" project was founded in 1998 to aid families in our area with both food and gifts during the holiday season. Both cash and actual gifts are needed and are presented to these families just before Thanksgiving & Christmas. This is a parish wide project.
Contact: Robin Bailey, 938-3824

EScrip Please join the people of St. Stephen’s supporting this powerful fundraising program. It is a hassle-free way for us to support our programs. Safeway and over 150 merchants have created a system that rewards customer loyalty by contributing a percentage of purchases to St. Stephen’s. Log on to www.eScrip.com and go to “sign up”. Designate St. Stephen’s to receive the contributions. Our Group ID is 157506604. Register your grocery club and other cards that you desire.
Contact: Ned Trippe, 254-3626

Caring Is Sharing On the third Sunday of every month, you have the opportunity to help those less fortunate than we are by putting cash, or a check made out to St. Stephen’s, in the envelope provided with your monthly bulletin. Funds go locally to the Pittsburg Food Pantry, to Episcopal Relief & Development or you may designate another non-profit organization for your gift and St. Stephen’s will forward the funds to that agency.
Contact: Anne Baker, 299-0706

Habitat for Humanity Several times a year, work teams from St. Stephen’s spend a day helping Habitat for Humanity build a local project. Those who participate in the hands-on construction pound nails, paint, and do other tasks under the supervision of a Habitat project manager. Other parishioners provide lunches for the workers. In our area, projects are regularly underway in Concord and Antioch.
Contact: Mitch Templeton, 254-4491

Loaves and Fishes of Contra Costa County St. Stephen's is a small part of a large group of volunteers serving meals five days a week to those in need. Our group goes on the 5th Wednesdays, 4-5 times per year. We travel by carpool to Pittsburgh, leaving at 8:30 am, and work at the catering kitchen, then serve the lunch at a nearby church. Usually work is completed by noon. New helpers are always welcome.
Contact: Liz Jewell, 254-2789.

Outreach Committee Through the generosity of our parishioners and friends, St. Stephen’s was able to distribute more than $90,000 recently to various causes in our community and around the world. As stated in Our Mission: We strive to serve those in our parish and in the larger community by giving of our time, talents and financial resources. We believe that our spirituality is activated through service to those in need in the community and the world.
Contact: Anne Baker, 299-0706

Shelter Inc. Shelter, Inc. is an independent charitable, nonprofit corporation originally created by the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors in 1986 to alleviate Contra Costa County’s homeless crisis. Once a year, St. Stephen's adopts a shelter in Contra Costa County for a week. We provide three meals a day at the shelter and we spend quality time with the residents.
Contact: Roxy Klein, 299-1245

Winter Nights This is the traveling shelter program of the Interfaith Council of Contra Costa County. We participate by hosting the shelter in our parish hall annually.
Contact: Debbie Hughes, hurried@comcast.net, or Jennifer Kirtland, jskirtland@comcast.net