Mission is everything we do as church to fulfill Jesus' call to serve as in Matthew 25:31-46 & 28:16-20 , Acts 1:1-8, and Ephesians 4:7-16. There isn't a separate mission part of our budget or of our ministry.  It is everything...or nothing at all.  Outreach is that portion of the mission which reaches out to help people beyond our normal relationships or comfort zone.

Here are some pieces of our reaching out beyond our selves:

Interfaith Hospitality Network of Summit County  hosts homeless families.   We are one of the host congregations' that offers it's facilities for a week at a time  every 8 weeks for the families to spend the evenings, have supper and breakfast, have their noon meal prepared to take with them, have people to visit with, and transportation for work, school, or the IHN Family Center during the day.  We have a host team that helps  the weeks we host including room preparation, food prep, spending the evening, clean up, drive the van, or just visit, tutor or provide child care for a respite for parents.  Contact Mary Beth Kluge or Kit Richert if you feel a calling to serve, would like more information or to give a special offering for this ministry.

Kids Hope USA  This ministry began in 2006 growing out of a vision that two "partners in ministry" of our church had.  Adults from our church develop a tutoring/mentoring relationship with students who are at risk in the lower elementary grades at Fairlawn Elementary School which is next door to us.  (The school technically now through the 2006-2007 school year is about 1 1/2 miles east of us on Market Street in a temporary setting while the new Judith A. Resnik Community and Learning Center is being built on the old Fairlawn School site.)  Tutor/mentors are invited to serve as well as substitute mentors.  Contact Mary Austin or Patty Kerr  if you feel a calling to serve, would like more information or to give a special offering for this ministry.

Williard UCC Food Pantry  is in southeast Akron at 742 Johnston Street. The food pantry is open the 3rd and 4th Tuesday mornings of the month and the Saturday morning in between. They serve on average 160 families a month. They are part of the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank and InfoLine. We have around 20 adults and 15 youth who serve as "unpaid servants" at the pantry over the year. We also collect items for the pantry. Since most of the food items are able to be purchased from the Food Bank at a bulk rate, we collect things like toiletries, baby food and diapers, cereal, plastic bags, paper bags, and pop and milk containers (which are used for laundry soap). But we do one more thing... Annual Spaghetti Supper Fund Raiser for Williard Food Pantry. The greatest gift for the pantry is money since they can buy the food from the Food Bank at a very low rate. So we do an annual spaghetti supper that raises around $3000 toward this cost. Contact Dick Pasher if you would like to help.

savedarfur.org which is leading the way in helping Americans and the wider world to respond to the genocide occuring in this region of the Sudan in Africa.
Heifer International which has a long history of helping poor people around the world to become self-sufficient through agriculture. They had a history in the Mississippi Delta and they serving to help the poor farm families of that area after Hurricane Katrina, to begin again to have farming independence economically.
Northland College the Environmental Liberal Arts College in Ashland, Wisconsin which is related to the United Church of Christ.
Church World Service

We give a variety of offerings throughout the year for special needs.

2095 W. Market Street, Akron, OH 44313

www.fairlwanwest.org  info@fairlawnwest.org  (330) 864-2179

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