We are Christ-centered Friends who equip and encourage all people
to respond to God's love and transforming Spirit.

Fairview Neighborhood Churches Interdenominational Tea
February 28, 2009
Friends Church

Tony Swan facilitated the discussion and started by telling everyone how this meeting came about. Everyone present introduced himself or herself. Tony gave an explanation of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee at the Friends Church. The representatives from the churches present discussed the community outreach efforts that their congregations are engaged in.

First Presbyterian Church
This church has a Mission Committee, which receives 10% of the church budget to fund various community organizations. They support Klamath and Lake Counties Food Bank, Gospel Mission, Salvation Army, Red Cross, Crisis Center, King's Kids, Gideon's, Lutheran Community Services, KLEOS (a child care/foster care community), a preschool, Friends of Children (a mentoring program), lunches for seniors, and an Angel Tree at Christmas. They also support some overseas projects, such as Witnessing Ministries and a hospital in India. They say the biggest need right now is coming from the Food Bank. Most of their support is financial, but they do have some volunteers doing things at the crisis center. The committee meets once a month and they choose how to allocate the money by looking at the requests that come in and making decisions about how much to send to which groups based on those.

Home Church
This is a new group, but social awareness is very important to them. They have some group members who are active in international issues in various places such as Africa, Haiti. Some of the issues they work with are orphans, human trafficking, and other issues.

First United Methodist Church
This church works with the larger church conference in dealing with such issues as immigration and hunger. In the Oregon/Idaho Conference, hunger is an especially important topic right now. The Methodist Federation of Social Action (not funded by the church, but there is a connection between the local church and the larger organization) is very focused on immigration at this time.
Within the local church, there is a Women's Society, which supports such local organizations as Integral Youth Services, KLEOS, Habitat for Humanity, the Crisis center, and SMART (Start Making a Reader Today). The Outreach Committee supports one or more covenant missionaries. Currently they are supporting two in Germany. The church does a PALM (Provide a Loving Meal) dinner on the third Tuesday of each month - this is a free dinner for anyone who would like to attend. They also provide lunches to neighborhood children during winter and spring school breaks. This past holiday season, they also gave out 17 holiday dinners.
The church also runs the AMP (After-school Mentoring Program). This program is funded by church members and a grant. In the past they have also raised money through holding rummage sales. They provide help with homework, arts and crafts classes, snacks, Christmas stockings, and mentoring. The food bank provides bread to them for this program, which usually serves at least 30 kids per day.
The church houses their own emergency food bank, which is separate from the Klamath and Lake Counties Food Bank. Here food is available for anyone who needs help.
In terms of support for international projects, the church is involved with Encore, which provides emergency/disaster response, including sending counselors and pastors to serve those whose lives have been disrupted.
In addition to the above activities, the church holds a service twice a month at Plum Ridge and a Cinco de Mayo dinner each year.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The largest community outreach activity here is the food pantry, which works in conjunction with the local food bank. It is open from 9-12 on Wednesdays. Alison, the pastor at St. Paul's, estimates that 50-100 people are served every week. It is staffed by volunteers from St Paul's and other churches.
There is no official outreach committee. There is a woman's group, which holds an English Tea each year as their main fundraiser. The proceeds from this go to various community projects. In the past, these have included Habitat for Humanity home building, among other things. They have a "final Friday" fundraiser dinner each month with varying themes. The money goes to different places. There was one the evening before this meeting and the money from that will go to Habitat for Humanity.
This church is affiliated with Episcopal Relief and Development and the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon. These groups focus on a different issue each year. This year the focus is on early childhood education.
A small group from the church recently went to New Orleans to work on rehabilitating houses as part of a program of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
Alison finds that there are many people needing help with rent, utilities, etc, and wonders whether there might be a way to coordinate a response.

Klamath Falls Friends Church (Quaker)
The Quaker church has a Peace and Social Concerns Committee, which makes recommendations to the larger church. They hold Peace Suppers on an irregular basis. These suppers have provided the space to discuss matters from around the world. The next one is scheduled for April 24 or May 1 of this year and will focus on education about immigration. Each year, the church picks an international project/organization to support through such activities as Quaker Bakers and whatever unexpected fundraising ideas bubble up. Last year the church supported a university in Kenya. In the past, they have donated to Right Sharing of World Resources, which provides microloans. This year, they will be involved in letter-writing campaigns in conjunction with Bread for the World.
Locally, the church supports the food bank by collecting food-each month is a different theme. They also planted a garden on church property - produce was donated to Gospel Mission and local people came and picked some. Also, some people went to the Staunton Farm in the fall and picked potatoes, which were then donated to the food bank. The church also donates 3 ½% of the monthly donations to Fairview Elementary School.
There is a Helping Fund that the church uses to meet needs of community members who need help with rent, utilities, etc. Also, the church is connected to the Mennonite Mutual Fund, so this is another source they have available to assist people with financial needs.
Last year, an anonymous benefactor donated enough money for each adult in the church to get $50 and each child, $10. The idea was for them to either grow the money to be donated to the university project in Kenya as well as a local project, or to give it in answer to a need they saw. The projects were varied.
Finally, the church makes and invites others to make prayer flags that are hung in the meeting room as a reminder to pray for the needs people have. There are also some out in the meditation garden in back of the church.

Possibilities for Cooperation
---Possibility of getting food bank representative downtown somewhere so people who cannot make it to the food bank building can register for a food card. If there is not the staff at the food bank to do this, perhaps a few people could be trained as volunteers to do this. For people who do not have transportation, getting to the actual food bank building to do paperwork can be a daunting task.

---Possibility of doing PALM dinners more often if others are willing to help with those.

---First United Methodist offered the use of their Fellowship Hall for other congregations who might need the space for some activity.

Observations
There is a website devoted to providing information about area churches: klamathbridges.org

There is a need for linking churches.

There is much emphasis on hunger.

There is a need for a clearinghouse of services provided-to whom and what for.

The decision was made to set up another meeting. A piece of paper was passed around so people could provide their contact information. In addition, Faith will contact those who didn't come and find out what they're doing. Notes from this meeting will be made available.