// 01 Pantry Parcels
Monthly staples, through the church.
Each month our volunteer crew assembles roughly one hundred and seventy parcels at the Shiloh Ridge packing shed. The standard box — the "Jireh Standard," as the shed log has called it since 2007 — contains five pounds of long-grain rice, two pounds of dried pinto beans, two pounds of dried navy beans, one box of rolled oats, two pounds of spaghetti, four cans of tomatoes, four cans of green beans, three cans of corn, a jar of peanut butter, a quart of cooking oil, five pounds of flour, two pounds of sugar, a pound of powdered milk, a box of table salt, and a pound of drip-ground coffee. A small bag of hard candies is added in December.
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 delivery log kept by the shed foreman and reviewed quarterly by the board clerk.
In the 2024 calendar year we distributed 2,143 parcels across forty-seven congregations. The packing shed operates on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings; volunteer crews rotate on a quarterly schedule coordinated through their home churches. The Thursday crew is traditionally followed by a meal of pinto beans and cornbread in the shed's back room, prepared on a rotating basis by the partner congregations.
// 02 Winter Relief
Firewood, propane, and the draft-patch crew.
From the first week of November through the last Saturday 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 hardwood — primarily red oak and sugar maple from standing timber donated by two landowners on the south ridge — to households heating with wood stoves. We pay propane deliveries for households with leased tanks, through a standing arrangement with a regional fuel cooperative. We dispatch a small volunteer crew, the "draft-patch crew," to reseal windows, re-hang storm sash, tack up house wrap where siding has failed, and sweep chimneys before first burn.
Referrals come exclusively from partner pastors. The winter-relief coordinator — a retired carpenter, serving in this role since 2016 — reviews each referral and schedules the work within a week when weather allows. The coordinator keeps a clipboard known informally as "the cold list"; it is transcribed into the quarterly log and then destroyed at the end of each season, by board practice, to protect the recipient households.
In the 2024–2025 heating season we delivered forty-three cords of firewood, funded twenty-nine propane fills, and completed forty-one house calls from the draft-patch crew. The average response time from referral to first visit was six days.
// 03 Pastoral Visitation
Presence, not performance.
Three chaplains — all ordained in their own traditions, none compensated — serve the visitation ministry. They visit shut-ins in their homes, patients in the two 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 in a small wooden case (the "pocket paten," made by one of our carpenters in 1998), a 1952 printing of the Book of Common Prayer, and nothing more.
We hold that a visitation ministry is measured by its quietness. In the 2024 calendar year the chaplains logged nine hundred and seven visits across the three counties. We do not publish names, diagnoses, or photographs; the chaplain's log is a one-line-per-visit ledger kept in the board clerk's archive box.
// 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 thousand and seven thousand dollars — and are disbursed directly to the vendor or the receiving congregation's benevolence account, never to the general fund. In the 2024 calendar year the board approved twenty-three grants: thirteen for building maintenance (roofing, guttering, foundation work), seven for benevolence replenishment, and three for the replacement of aging oil or propane furnaces. One request — for a gymnasium expansion — was respectfully declined, with a letter from the clerk explaining the board's standing preference for maintenance over expansion.