Serving the Community
Serving the Community Locally
St. George’s Outreach Committee helps explore opportunities for our parish family to serve and support our most vulnerable brothers and sisters through ministries in our community. While parishioners may find many ways to connect their hearts to the work of their hands, some primary ways that we support our community are through the following service opportunities:
Team Read
Service Opportunity – Team Read at Oak Forest and Willow Oaks Elementary
Can you spare one hour each week or even one hour occasionally to help a 2nd-grader learn their sight words? If so, come and join Team Read. We work one-on-one with the students who are great fun to be with. We have lots of laughs and it’s a real joy to see the students progress and grow in confidence.
No experience is necessary, just the desire to help a student. Training and materials are provided. We start in mid-September and we’re finished by early April. You can join us midway through the school year too. We partner with Germantown Presbyterian Church and Beth Sholom Synagogue.
We have two locations and several different times to coach, so you have choices:
- Oak Forest Elementary: 8:15 am – 9:05 am, Mon, Tues, Wed, and Fri (not Thurs)
- Willow Oak Elementary: choice of 8:30 am – 9:30 am or 1:20 pm – 2:20 pm, Mon-Fri
The ways we touch the students’ lives are not limited to their reading scores. One of the teachers said it best, “Thank you to the entire Team Read team for arming my students with the necessary foundational skills in reading. Several of my students who continue to struggle, but not as much, exhibit a sense of pride.”
To learn more, please contact Margaret Morley: mmorley123@gmail.com or text or call 901-359-5294.
*Team Read has been discontinued for 2020 and possibly into 2021 because of the coronavirus restrictions on social gatherings and school closures.
Quick Access to Some of Team Read’s Key Materials
- 2019/2020 Oak Forest Elementary Team Read Manual
- Fry Word Lists
- Websites with Fry Words, Games, Puzzles and Comprehension Exercises
- Teaching Comprehension by Barbara Hellman, Beth Sholom Synagogue
- Fry Word Phrases/Sentences and Comprehension Stories 1-100, created by Germantown United Methodist Church (GUMC)
- Fry Word Phrases/Sentences 1-500, created by GUMC
- Fry Words in Paragraphs 101-400, created by GUMC
Service Opportunity – Team Math
If you have 1 hour each week, you can help 3rd -graders in basic math skills at Oak Forest. No special math skills needed. Work with two 3rd-graders at the same time for 45 minutes one day/week on multiplication and division facts, telling time, elapsed time, fractions, etc. Supplies are provided, guidance is given and you have flexibility with your lessons, too. Please contact Margaret Morley (mmorley123@gmail.com) for info.
Room in the Inn
St. George’s supports this community-wide ministry by helping to provide transportation, meals and supplies for up to 13 of our neighbors who are without shelter during the winter months (November through March). A dedicated space is provided by Germantown United Methodist Church, with whom we partner for this ministry. If you would like to serve on the St. George’s team (1st and 3rd Thursday evenings) or learn more about this ministry in which St. George’s and other churches share in providing shelter and hospitality to guests without shelter, please call St. George’s Team Coordinator John Remsen at 309-241-2690 (jremsenjr@yahoo.com). Lots of opportunities abound to share in this ministry! This is the perfect opportunity for families with teens! Please join us!
Labor of Love
Labor of Love is a community service day, held annually on Labor Day, that brings together St. George’s Episcopal, Germantown United Methodist, Germantown Presbyterian, and New Bethel Baptist Churches; we partner with MIFA to offer members several ministry opportunities to serve neighbors in need: (1) filling bags for MIFA’s Emergency Services, (2) cleaning yards and doing minor home repairs, (3) delivering meals in selected areas, and (4) packaging meals for MidSouth Food Bank. Everyone can be part of Labor of Love; there’s something for everyone – from 3 to 103! Contact Mother Dorothy (Dorothy@stgeorgesgermantown.org) for more information about what you can do to be a part of this amazing day of serving our sisters and brothers in our community!
*Labor Of Love has been discontinued for 2020 and possibly into 2021 because of the coronavirus restrictions on social gatherings and church closures.
More Than a Meal
On the fourth Sunday of each month, St. George’s parishioners gather at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, in Midtown Memphis, at 3:00 p.m., to serve a meal to our sisters and brothers in need. It’s a great opportunity for fellowship and service. Contact Mother Dorothy (Dorothy@stgeorgesgermantown.org) for more information.
*More Than a Meal has been discontinued for 2020 and possibly into 2021 because of the coronavirus restrictions on social gatherings and church closures
Meals on Wheels
Join those who deliver MIFA meals to home-bound seniors! Bob White (quailawyer@aim.com) can tell you how you can share in this meaningful experience!
Emmanuel Center
Emmanuel Center – Operation Backpack, Operation Joy and Operation Warmth: We celebrate nearly 30 years of amazing ministry for inner-city children and youth at Emmanuel Center! Through Operation Warmth and Operation Joy (in December), we help make Christmas brighter, and also provide winter coats for children and youth, and through Operation Backpack (in July), we help provide school supplies to help equip students for learning and success!
For more information, please contact Bob Matthews (robert.s.matthewsjr@gmail.com), for Operation Backpack; Maggie Schaumleffel (mschaumleffel@gmail.com) or Carol Sigman (csigman854@aol.com), for Operation Joy; Bobbie McLaughlin (wonderlymclaughlin@hotmail.com), for Operation Warmth; or Mother Dorothy (Dorothy@stgeorgesgermantown.org), for questions about supporting Emmanuel Center.
Support for the Mariposas Collective
Some of the members of St. George’s DoK Chapter have been supporting and encouraging parish support for the Mariposas Collective to provide aid, as Christ asked, to the strangers among us. Mariposas Collective is a local ministry effort which, in 4 shifts each day, meets the buses that bring immigrants who have been granted asylum hearings from border cities to travel north to stay with family or friends. Memphis is often the first stop for men, women and children from Central America, Mexico and African nations, who arrive hungry, thirsty, with meager possessions and speaking very limited or no English. Those who serve the Mariposas Collective, which operates out of First Congregational Church, prepare sandwiches and snacks, gather needed clothing, personal hygiene and health items, which are distributed by four teams of volunteers who meet the buses daily to provide water and these items to the immigrants. Those who have given of their time and talent to the Mariposas Collective have served 34,921 immigrants from highs of over 200 per day to the present count of about 30 per day. St George’s DoK maintains a donations box for specifically requested in-kind donations. Some members have served with the sandwich-making teams and several parishioners have served with the bus teams. The Mariposas Collective still needs people to serve. Learn more about serving or giving to Mariposas Collective at https://www.facebook.com/MariposasCollective.
Food Drives for Collierville Food Pantry
At least once each year, St. George’s asks parishioners to help “stock the pantry” at Collierville Food Pantry and to provide much-needed items which are shared with those who do not have sufficient food to eat. For the past several years, “stocking the pantry” has been part of our Lenten discipline. For more information about how you can help, please contact Mother Dorothy (Dorothy@stgeorgesgermantown.org).
St. George’s International Mission Support
St. George’s has been blessed to receive several gifts from the Crook Family Trust which are earmarked for international mission. We are grateful that the Crook Family has entrusted us with discerning areas of support throughout the world for these gifts. The Vestry has gratefully received a gift in 2020, and in a year during which COVID relief is such a significant ministry focus, has conferred with the Outreach Committee in designating the following ministries to receive these funds. 65% of the funds will be sent to COVID-specific ministries; the remainder will support ministries for children and youth, victims of the Beirut explosion (An estimated 40% of Lebanese citizens are Christian.), and ongoing support of those fleeing violence in Syria – many of whom are Christians.
Episcopal Relief & Development is an international relief and development agency and a compassionate response to human suffering on behalf of The Episcopal Church of the United States.Our work to heal a hurting world is guided by the principles of compassion, dignity and generosity.
We take our mandate from the words of Jesus, found in Matthew 25: 37-40, that call us to feed the hungry, care for the sick and welcome the stranger.
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
— Matthew 25:40 (NRSV, extracted from our mandate 25:37-40)
St. George’s Supports Ministries sponsored by St. Paul’s Cathedral at San Miguel de Allente, Mexico….
Including a kitchen which is associated with a school that provides a hot lunch daily for the children of the school. Learn more about Feed the Hungry at http://feedthehungrysma.org