// 01 Pantry Parcels
Monthly staples, through the church.
Each month our volunteer crew assembles roughly one hundred and seventy parcels at the packing shed: rice, dried beans, pasta, canned vegetables, peanut butter, cooking oil, flour, sugar, powdered milk, and a pound of coffee. Partner congregations receive their allotment on the first Saturday of the month and distribute according to the pastor's knowledge of need. No applications, no means test, no follow-up paperwork. The parcel arrives; the parcel is given; the record is kept in a simple log.
In 2024, we distributed 2,143 parcels across forty-seven congregations. The packing shed operates on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings, and volunteers rotate on a quarterly schedule coordinated through their home churches.
// 02 Winter Relief
Firewood, propane, insulation.
From the first week of November through the last week of March, the ministry operates a winter-relief line item funded separately from the general pantry budget. The work is simple and physical: we cut, split, and deliver cords of seasoned firewood to households heating with wood stoves; we pay propane deliveries for households with leased tanks; and we dispatch a small volunteer crew to patch insulation, seal windows, and repair minor drafts in older homes.
Referrals come exclusively from partner pastors. The winter-relief coordinator, a retired carpenter, reviews each referral and schedules the work within a week when weather allows.
// 03 Pastoral Visitation
Presence, not performance.
Three chaplains — all ordained, none compensated — serve the visitation ministry. They visit shut-ins in their homes, patients in regional hospitals, and bereaved families in the weeks following a funeral. Visits are arranged through the congregation of record and are never announced beyond those directly involved. A chaplain carries communion elements, a prayer book, and nothing more.
We hold that a visitation ministry is measured by its quietness. In 2024 the chaplains logged just over nine hundred visits. We do not publish names.
// 04 Parish Support
Small grants to small churches.
Quarterly, the board reviews requests from partner congregations for building repairs, heating systems, and additions to their own benevolence funds. Grants are modest — typically between one and seven thousand dollars — and are disbursed directly to the vendor or the receiving congregation's benevolence account, not to the church's general fund. In 2024 the board approved twenty-three grants: thirteen for building maintenance, seven for benevolence replenishment, and three for replacement of aging furnaces.