Outreach: Helping Hands
Helping Hands is a ministry provides groceries the needy in our community. The opportunity to serve in this ministry is open to all Saint James parishioners. Food has been distributed bi-weekly for more than 25 years. On alternate Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m., bags of groceries are distributed to an average of 100 needy individuals (one bag per family). While there is some turnover in clientele and not everyone comes every week, most are regulars.
Helping Hands also provides a box of food before Christmas. Help is needed for preparing and distributing bags of groceries at the church. We also collect grocery and hygiene items from the congregation every Sunday during the 10:30 a.m. service.
We see the effects of a soft economy in the upsurge in our number of Helping Hands clients. In 2006, we gave 3,000+ bags of groceries to people in need in our community. In addition to our base of fixed income elderly clients, we now see a goodly number of the working poor and our weekday transient pack numbers steadily increase.
We are so thankful to the parish for the support and generosity given to this ministry and to our dedicated and faithful volunteers who make it possible to tend and feed God's sheep in our neighborhood.
―Contacts: John Moore, Ginny Combs