OUTREACH
"Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me."
Our Outreach Ministry embraces these words of Jesus. We not only provide financial support to programs but we offer lots of "hands-on" participation. We remind parishioners we are agents of God's kingdom in our community and in the world.
We are proud to be a Jubilee Ministry Center. We are avidly engaged in mission and ministry among and with people in need.
Our ministry includes:
- Judeo-Christian Outreach Center providing food and shelter for the homeless. We prepare and serve meals quarterly and as needed.
- Access (was Full Circle AIDS Ministry) – preparing meals for distribution to AIDS patients.
- The Mission of the Holy Spirit - a ministry to children and teens in Norfolk.
- Kairos Prison Ministry
- Angel Tree - providing Christmas presents for children with parents in prison
- Emmanuel's Food Pantry – serving families referred by Virginia Beach Social Services.
- Meals on Wheels – delivering meals one week each month
- Blood Drives – hosting three blood drives each year.
- Faith Works Coalition – addressing substandard housing for the elderly and disabled in Virginia Beach.
- American Red Cross – manning a Disaster Assistance Team one week each month to provide aid to victims of fires and other disasters in the local area. We have been trained by the Red Cross so that we can establish a disaster center at Emmanuel should the need ever arise in Virginia Beach.
- Holy Cross Anglican School in Belize – providing monetary and missionary support.
- Thank you letter to Tuesday Cursillo Group for funding a scholarship.
- See pictures from our January 2010 mission trip to the school in our scrapbook.
- Millennium Development Goals - giving 0.7% of our parish budget to organizations working for the MDGs to end extreme poverty and hunger world-wide. Our MDG Committee is targeting projects that accomplish these goals and allow our congregation to have a more personal understanding by bringing in outside speakers who will discuss the various projects.
Disaster Emergency Relief Team – Volunteers who travel to other parts of the country to assist in recovery from natural disasters. We sent our first team to the Mississippi Gulf Coast in support of Katrina relief in December 2005. Since then we have sent our own teams and provided volunteers for Habitat for Humanity and Faith Works to assist in rebuilding Mississippi. In 2008 we sent teams to help with recovery from tornados in Tennessee and floods in Iowa.
For contact information for specific outreach programs, click here.
We financially contribute to Episcopal Relief & Development, Heifer Project, Boy's Home, Women of Hope, missionary programs, Bread for the World and many others.
