We serve as hosts at Out of the Cold Centre County for one week in the winter, and one in the summer. We set up our signup so that people can participate meaningfully without feeling capable of handling dinner for 20+ solo! Some small groups choose a night to show up together. Volunteers cook or purchase food for dinner or breakfast, serve dinner, visit with guests, and in the winter when it’s dark slippery, pick up and bring food prepared by others. Our youth groups participate each winter.
Our Juniper Village Block Party takes place from 2:45-4:00 on the fourth Sunday of each even-numbered month, right after the 1:45 community room viewing of that morning’s service. Folks who arrive early join with residents in the active parts of the service. At the rise of service, the intergenerational group visits over snacks and an activity, often including a craft for kids to share with residents. Volunteers sign up to plan activities, bring snacks and napkins, and show up to participate. This project was specifically designed as an opportunity for families to participate together.
We collaborate with Church World Service (CWS) through participation in the State College CROP Walk, which supports the anti-hunger work of CWS and the State College Area Food Bank, through our preparation of Disaster Cleanup Buckets. Volunteers donate items during Lent, FISH prepares the supplies for packing after Easter. Bucket packing is intergenerational, and takes place during a spring education hour.
We are also signatories to the CWS Ash Wednesday Ecumenical Declaration
We make, write, and collect Christmas Cards for our incarcerated neighbors. The collection happens in October, but individuals and small groups can prepare cards all year long! Oasis hosts an intergenerational card corner in the back of the social hall during coffee hour, and people contribute messages, decorating skills, or complete cards. Imperfect cards carry a real human connection to people who often feel forgotten. Check it out!
We support Centre LGBT+ by sponsoring Pride, showing up at Pride and the Transgender Day of Visibility, and by providing space (and dishwashers!) for their lovely Giving Thanks dinner and gathering held annually on a Sunday evening prior to Thanksgiving.
Each spring we join with many others across Centre County on a spring morning for Clearwater Conservancy’s Watershed Cleanup Day. It’s always scheduled for a Saturday near Earth Day. It’s an active day, but we have quite a safe site, so it’s a great time for folks from young to wise to be helpful, be outside, and be together. We’ve kept big trash (kiddie pools and tarps) and little (caps and cigarette butts) out of our waterways!
Our church has a dedicated set of volunteers who go to Kenya periodically to serve and volunteer at Hekima Place. People who have gone often keep in touch with their friends at Hekima Place throughout the year. The short film One Girl at a Time is a great place to get acquainted, or you can watch it for after-trip sharing by our volunteers. Trip interest meetings generally take place in the fall prior to a summer trip.
State College Presbyterian Church’s annual Christmas Day Dinner has more than a thirty year unbroken history. The dinner is festive, free, and a chance to celebrate and share Christmas fellowship together with our broader community. Volunteers can help by spreading the word, decorating, donating ingredients, cooking, serving as greeters, table hosts, servers, dishwashers, doing tablecloth laundry after the event, and participating.
Our Angel Tree project has been running for more than 20 years, and now provides presents for clients of 18 local programs and agencies. Individuals, families, preschool classrooms, and our youth groups look forward to finding gift tags and shopping to fulfill those needs and wishes. Angel Tree opens a full week before Thanksgiving, with gifts due at the end of the first week of December. Gifts are complete and get delivered to agencies early in the third week of December. Volunteers prepare the tags, keep towers of gifts organized as they collect, deliver them to the agencies, and wrap those that are ordered directly by the church.
Our Gifts for the Christ Child special collection runs from Advent through Epiphany, often benefiting our friends at Hekima Place or supporting disaster response through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.
One Great Hour of Sharing is a PCUSA special collection that runs during Lent, responding to disaster, hunger, poverty, climate change, and immigration/migration and refugees. The collection serves individuals and communities in need, providing people with safety, sustenance, and hope.
We often share prayers relevant to mission and to world events in the church’s Weekly Update email. We also periodically share opportunities for remote learning or action offered by the PC(USA) Office of Public Witness, Presbyterian Disaster Relief, and others.
We seek 100% participation across the congregation in at least one mission-related initiative each year in deed, through financial support, or in prayer. We know you will find the opportunities that are the right fit for you!
We recognize that there are more hurts and more harms than this congregation alone can fix. We collaborate with established organizations that meet human needs at many scales and meet each person with dignity.
We look for opportunities to work at smaller, human scales for meaningful involvement of individuals, as well as at larger scales, where we might begin to address deeper causes of more visible pain. Opportunities to join in larger efforts help us realize we are not alone in desiring or working for change. In all cases, we pray that our words and actions will be guided, connected, and amplified by God.
