Ministries - Outreach

The following is the report of the Outreach Committee to the 2010 Annual Meeting of Trinity Church. Our donations and accomplishments this past year once again reflected our philosophy of helping people and families in need, most especially children. The Special Envelope donations for 2009 benefited the following

On Super Bowl Sunday we collected $129 in our “Souper Bowl Sunday” stockpot to send to Trinity Torrington’s Soup Kitchen.

In the spring, in addition to the Ash Wednesday collection going to Winsted Family Shelter, the parish collected warm socks for the Torrington overflow shelter. $538 was raised for the Bishop's Fund for Children via Confirmation and $1000 for Camp Batey (Camp for Haitian children in the Dominican Republic) through the Youth Group and Church collections. Sixty bag meals were put together and distributed at Bushnell Park on April 18th on behalf of the Lunch in the Park Project to feed the homeless. The Lenten Project for 2009 was again Easter/Spring Baskets for needy children at My Sister’s Place Transitional Housing in Hartford. As usual, parishioners did a fabulous job of creating delightfully creative baskets for these children. On June 8th the Outreach Committee volunteered at Church Street Eats, serving a meal and providing deserts. Also in June, 25 back packs were filled by parishioners for Canton school children needing supplies. Over the summer diapers were collected for Gifts of Love and the Canton Food Bank.

Spring and Christmas gift bags were put together by the Outreach Committee and delivered to Trinity members unable to attend church.
In the fall, Trinity parishioners participated in Neighbor Helping Neighbor Day. In October our hat/glove/mitten/scarf tree collected warm accessories which were divided between Torrington and Susan B Anthony’s Shelters.
In November, Laurann Askloff, Jennifer Casey and Peg Pinton co-chaired the Quality Street Fair. A host of other parishioners participated in a multitude of ways to make this fund raising event a huge success despite the economy. $6000 was raised and divided between the Canton Food and Fuel Banks.

Two Canton Families received Christmas gifts due to the generosity of our Parish, and Focus on Canton was assisted in making gift bags for Cherry Brook Nursing Home. Some of our Sunday school children added home made snow flake ornaments to those bags. We collected $53 for Operation Home for the Holidays to bring our state-side troops home to their families this Christmas holiday before their deployment.

During the first few months of 2009, on the second Sunday, parishioners provided a dinner for My Sister’s Place shelter (a shelter for women and children in Hartford) residents. Unfortunately, the shelter closed in March and this parish ministry came to an end. The Outreach Committee feels that this ministry was a very important hands-on experience for parishioners and wanted to replace it with another ministry to some of the poorest of our city neighbors. We have decided that we would like the Parish to provide and serve the meals at the Lunch in the Park Program quarterly.

Trinity continued to collect pet food for AID-A-PET which provided food, etc. for the pets of individuals with AIDS who might not be able to afford to keep their pet without financial assistance. Unfortunately, we learned in the fall of 2009 that the Northwest AIDS Project closed.

Of course, food continues to be collected for the Canton Food Bank housed at Trinity which has served many more individuals and families this past year.

We gratefully thank the congregation for its wonderful support of the Outreach Committee. Without your continued support we would not be able to help those people less fortunate than ourselves. We welcome suggestions of any organization that you would like us to consider for the upcoming year. Our Committee had 1 new member this year but we continue to seek ‘new blood’ especially newer members of Trinity, to provide us with new ideas, talent and energy. Please consider it!