Our church was a drop-off location for the "For the Love" campaign to provide clothing and supplies to the homeless community to help them survive this bitterly cold winter. We don't have numbers on the donations but there were several boxes in the foyer filled with clothing, gloves, tarps, etc.

This year's Angel Tree program was again a huge success.  Cards quickly disappeared, gifts were returned to the church and our elves delivered them to families a couple Saturdays before Christmas.  A total of 60 children received gifts to help make their Christmas bright.

Your donations to the Christmas Offering totaled $8750.  This went to three groups, one each at the local, national and global level: Buckhorn Retreat, Church World Services and Tent of Nations.

Again, thank you for your generosity

And by the same token, thank you for supporting our church.  A strong, healthy church can do so much more for the congregation and the community.

There is a place just blocks from our church where anyone seeking something to eat is welcome to sit down over a plated hot meal or just grab a to-go bag of food.  Community Kitchen has been providing meals seven days a week continuously since December 26th, 2016.  They state on their mission page: "We seek to provide food for those who are hungry, conversation for those who are lonely and rest for those who are struggling." FUMC has been a partner in that vision for years.

Community Kitchen was established back in 1996 by a coalition of churches.  Their founding tenant was that everyone is welcome -- everyone deserves a meal.  Operations began out of the basement of First United Presbyterian Church in downtown Loveland.  At that time, lunches were the only meal provided.  By 2010, it was decided to move out of the basement.  Capital funds were raised to renovate a detached garage on the Meals on Wheels property into the currently existing kitchen and dining area which is conjoined with the Meals on Wheels building.  Since then operations have grown to include first breakfast and later dinner.  Today, post pandemic, breakfasts are served in the morning during the work week and dinners are served seven days a week in the evening.

In 2020, Community Kitchen hit a speed bump, but despite the pandemic, they continued to provide meals, however, their business model had to change.  They could no longer serve meals indoors, so they switched to an outdoor walk-up take-away model and cut their offerings to one hot meal a day.  They added sustainable food bags so that clients could shelter in place making fewer visits to their facility.  Working with Salvation Army which provides lodging vouchers to low income patients recently released from hospitals or during inclement weather events, they delivered meals. During this period, the number of people they served increased (by 60%) even as the platoon of volunteers was cut back to around fifty.

There are an array of activities that take place in order to serve dinners at Community Kitchen.  Fortunately, for those that are not Top Chefs, meals are prepared by Meals on Wheels which adjoins Community Kitchen.  The precooked food arrives in large stainless steel pans stored in insulated cabinets on wheels.  The trays need simply be placed in the warm bath serving station.  In the past, Meals on Wheels only provided the hot lunches, while dinners were donated by outside sources such as restaurants in the community, but the pandemic and economies of scale have strengthened this synergistic bond with Meals on Wheels.

Before opening the door to the clients, some volunteers might be buttering bread, plating desserts or starting coffee and drinks.  Someone has to open the trailer and supply it with food bags and protein options.  Once the door opens, volunteers greet the clients and get their drink orders.  In the kitchen, plates are filled with the main course and sides, while yet another volunteer delivers them to the tables.  Someone has to run dinners in clam-shell containers and other supplies to the trailer where a couple of people are distributing meals and snack bags.  Standing at the sink wearing a water proof apron, a volunteer is rinsing plates and utensils so they can be put through the sanitizer.

Somehow out of all this chaos, people in need of a good, hot meal are being served.  If this sounds like fun to you, consider contacting one of the FUMC coordinators listed below to sign up for a shift.  If you'd rather stay out of the kitchen, you can always support Community Kitchen by making a donation at their website.

Community Kitchen

Volunteer opportunities with FUMC

When: the third Thursday and Friday of each month

Thursday contact: Leroy Cline, 970-310-1226

Friday contact: Anita Williams, 970-689-0019

Besides this short turnaround effort, the Church Council has charged the Missions Committee to find additional ways in which we can support Truscott Elementary. Some of the ways in which we have provided support were highlighted in the Fall 2021 Issue of the Mission Memo. The Church Council is looking to us to expand our efforts with Truscott to help them be more fully funded for the school’s needs, relieve teachers of their personal spending for school supplies, work in significant ways with the children and, perhaps, be able to provide emotional support to parents through this particularly difficult time. We'll put on our thinking caps and try to come up with some ideas. As always, we are open to suggestions from the congregation, so if you have ideas about how we as a church can help our neighbor, simply respond to this email (missionsnews@fumcloveland.com).

Once again, FUMC will be sponsoring a virtual build with Pura Vida.  Last year, around 30 members of our church joined the construction crew virtually by donating $250 each to help complete a home for Manuela and her grandsons, Martin and Sebastian.  With uncertainty surrounding the state of the COVID-19 pandemic, planning a trip for 2022 was out of the question.  So stay tuned!  Details of this years virtual build are being worked and news will be forthcoming.